Harry Potter and the Song of Time
by Crazy Ivan
Summary: Set at the Institute at St Andrews, Britain's foremost wizarding institution of higher education, we discover the true range of Harry, Hermione, Ron and Draco's powers, learn more about the wizarding world and meet some new characters. Some material inspi
1. Coda dal Fine

**Harry Potter and the Song of Time  
By Crazy Ivan**  


  
Author's Note: Our story begins in Harry & Co.'s final year at Hogwarts, and moves quickly on to the first year of post-Hogwarts life. Our heroes start at the Institute in St Andrews, Britain's finest place of higher wizarding education. Friends old and new pop up in the strangest of places, and we delve into the very meaning of Time itself!  
  
Parts of the story are loosely inspired by, extrapolated from and refer to _Draco Dormiens_ by Cassandra Claire, who has kindly given her consent to the use of Magids and 'her' Draco and his new outlook on life. It was written before the completion of _Draco Sinister_, so not all ideas in that story may be taken on board -- particularly the Heir theme. Neither is it a sequel to _DD_ or _DS. _We also go against JKR's own canon statements that there is no wizarding education past Hogwarts. Why? Because that's what fanfic is for, dammit!  
  
**Disclaimer**: I make no claims to be JKR -- or, for that matter, Cassandra Claire. Mainly because I'd look silly in a dress, but also because I respect and acknowledge their copyrighted material. Rave owns the Chimney Sweep song (I think...) and Penumbri owns Draco's Ducky Socks.  
  
All new material, however, is mine. All mine. And, to quote British Magical Rail, if you steal it, use it in any moneygrubbing gobliny sort of way, or do anything else with it that would upset my grandmother, "We Will Send Large Hairy Thugs Round To Your House To Pull Off Your Toenails".  
  
For reasons of language, this story is rated "R". Hey, eighteen-year-olds swear, drink, and have, er, relations sometimes.  
  


**Prologue: Coda dal Fine**  


  
Harry Potter walked down the corridor of Gryffindor tower one sunny morning in April, giving his "Head Boy" badge a quick polish with his sleeve. Outside, the sunlight was making the ripples on the lake sparkle, making it seem as if it were gilded. Entering the Gryffindor common room, Harry smiled at Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, who were leafing through the Daily Prophet. "Morning," he said brightly. "It's Pensieve day today, isn't it?"  
  
The three students had been looking forward to making their own Pensieves in Charms ever since, three weeks ago, Professor Flitwick had announced that, as final-year students, they should begin research on the topic. A Pensieve allowed the owner's thoughts to be examined objectively, and Harry remembered how, in his fourth year at Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore's Pensieve had helped him to unravel the secret behind the Triwizard tournament. He, Hermione and Ron were now in their seventh and final year at Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft, studying for their N.E.W.T.s (Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests).  
  
"Yes," Hermione said, smiling. "I know just what I'm going to try to unravel as well."  
"What are you going to look at?" asked Ron interestedly.  
"I'll hardly tell you, Ron Weasley," she said in mock reproach. Silently, she thought of that scene in the wardrobe of Malfoy Mansion...  
"Hermione?" Harry asked, breaking into her train of thought as if he expected an answer.  
"Yes? Sorry?" Hermione stuttered, looking up confusedly.  
"I'd just asked which of the two styles of charm you'd be using." Harry sounded concerned. "Are you all right?"  
"Yes, I'm fine, just thinking about something," Hermione said. She picked up her bag, bulging with books as normal, and headed towards the portrait hole, followed by Harry and Ron, who were giving each other bemused looks.  
  
Arriving in Professor Flitwick's classroom, they found the rest of the Charms NEWT class pulling on laboratory coats and protective goggles over their robes. Professor Flitwick was, as usual, standing on a pile of textbooks on his chair in order to see over the top of his desk.  
"Now, is everybody here?" he asked, doing a quick head-count with his wand. "Excellent. Each working group of three students should find their materials laid out in front of them. You should each have the following..."  
  
Professor Flitwick ran quickly through the assorted things set out on the workbenches in front of them. There was a large stone bowl for each of them, as well as several beakers and jars of interestingly-coloured liquids and several long metal spoons, obviously for use in stirring the liquids. Ron picked up a closed beaker filled with a glutenous green substance and read the label on it. "Vermicious Ectoplasm, 5%." He picked up another, containing a viscous red lump of goo. "Fermented Manticore Venom, 100 proof. Nasty stuff."  
"Is that the technical term for it?" Hermione asked with her tongue firmly implanted in her cheek. Ron shot her a dark look.  
  
"Right then," Flitwick said, "take the Manticore Venom, yes, that's the red lumpy one, and mix it with the extract of bat spleen in your bowls. Make sure that you put the venom in first, however, or it won't mix properly. Now, dribble in the Octopod ink, stirring constantly. That's right, Potter, there you go."  
  
He continued to direct their experiments, adding one noxious ingredient after another, until the contents turned (with the addition of the Vermicious Ectoplasm) silvery and opaque. "Now," Flitwick said, "a simple charm will set the bowl swirling. "Eolus!" he commanded at the bowl, and the silver contents started to swirl around. Harry picked up his wand and muttered "Eolus" at the bowl, the liquid revolving clockwise as if down a drain.  
  
"Right," said Professor Flitwick. "You should all be able to extract one thought and put it in the Pensieve. Go on now...one at a time...there we go Miss Patil...well done Mr Finnigan...excellent, Miss Granger." Hermione was staring into the Pensieve when a bright flash washed over her. When her eyes adjusted to the light, she realised where she was.  
  
Hermione stood cramped in Draco Malfoy's small wardrobe in the as-yet unrefurbished Malfoy Mansion. As her eyes became accustomed to the light, she could make out two figures, one which she knew was Draco and the other herself. She gazed thoughtfully at them, pondering. She frowned and concentrated, trying to hear what they -- she -- were saying.  
  
"What part of 'it locks from the outside' didn't you understand?" Draco sounded irritated. There's a surprise, Hermione thought to herself. She wasn't concentrating and missed the next few lines.  
"Granger?" the other Hermione made a noise of exasperation. "First Harry, now you! Why are both of you acting like you hate me all of a sudden..."  
  
Hermione swore loudly as the Pensieve began to pull her back to reality. She was really no further along the road to understanding the exchange that had taken place in the cupboard than she was to understanding how Divination could be classified as an academic subject. Harry, Ron and the rest of Professor Flitwick's classroom came into view as Hermione's conscious returned.  
  
"So, what did you go back to, Hermione?" Ron asked.   
"Er--Moaning Myrtle's loo, of all places," Hermione lied. "Remember, in second-year, when we were making the you-know-what to counteract You-Know-Who you-know-where?"  
"Which you-know-what and which you-know-where?" Ron asked, sounding confused.  
"A certain _feline_ you-know-what, and a certain dark and dangerous you-know-where," Harry said. "With a certain you-know-how many times winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile contest."  
"Oh, that you-know-what, with you-know-who and You-Know-Who you-know-where."  
  
Parvati Patil and Seamus Finnigan were giving them very strange looks from the next workbench along, which Hermione met with a rather uncanny resemblance of a McGonagall Arctic Look. "You next, Ron," she said, fishing her thought out of the bowl. Ron tapped his head with his wand and plopped the thought into the bowl, staring after it.   
  
From Harry and Hermione's point of view, he had only been looking down for a minute when, looking very contented, he looked up at them dreamily. "How long was I out of it?" he asked.  
  
"A minute, maybe a minute and a half, why?" Hermione asked.  
"Is that all?" Ron said quizzically. "I'm sure I spent longer than that in there..."  
"Time distortion," Harry said. "How far back did you go?"  
"First year," Ron replied.  
"There you go," Harry said. "Funny that Hermione was down for longer, though. She went back to second year."  
At that, Hermione looked away hurriedly, hoping that Harry and Ron wouldn't think to ask her any more questions about when -- and where -- she had been. "Harry, your turn," she said, rather flustered.  
  
Harry tapped his wand to his head and, like Ron, made as if to flick the thought into the Pensieve. However, it bounced off the far side of the bowl as it fell in, splashing Ron and Hermione with liquid. Harry, however, hadn't noticed, and leant down over the bowl.  
  
"Haaarrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyy!" he heard as Hermione and Ron followed him down into the Pensieve's depths. Hermione thought that he must be going back very far indeed, because the Pensieve took some time to focus itself into a picture of a large country manor in a verdant valley surrounded by tall, snow-capped hills. She turned and tapped Harry on the shoulder. "Nice one," Ron said, and Harry whirled as if Voldemort himself had said it.  
"Wha--how--why--" he stuttered, looking at them and around them.  
"We were splashed with some Pensieve juice," Ron said. "I guess we must have been pulled along with you."  
"Actually," Hermione put in, "there are records of this happening on just such an occasion. In fact, the Pensieve Participation Procedure is often used in important wizard trials -- it's almost as good as an eyewitness. The theory of it is in _A Precis Of Magical Jurisprudence_, which isn't _really_ a precis at all, it's actually rather an imprecis, but--"  
"Harry," Ron broke in, suddenly realising where they probably were, "where are we?"  
"Godric's Hollow," came the response. "Nineteen eighty-one. October thirty-first, Nineteen eighty-one."  
"Harry," Hermione breathed. "Surely you can't remember..."  
"Actually," Harry said, turning back to her with a strange look on his face, "it would appear that I can. If you want to come along, feel free. Otherwise...you're welcome to just wait out here."  
  
It was hot and sunny, and the ivy growing up one side of the house glowed in the warm glow of the autumn evening sunshine. A table and some chairs were set outside a large open french window, and two people sat playing with a small child. The shorter of the two picked the child up and they moved inside. The elder Harry closed his eyes. When he opened them again, it was evening and a roaring fire was crackling away in the hearth. A man with black hair was roasting some chestnuts in an old frying pan over the fire, watched intently by the child. "Dada," the child said endearingly.  
  
Hermione covered her eyes with her hands, not daring to look. It was like reading a novel for the umpteenth time -- you knew what was going to happen, what disaster was going to befall the characters who were now carrying on their normal existence. Hands in hair, she opened her eyes as the far wall exploded in a shower of stone and glass. The woman from earlier on, who Hermione now knew to be Lily Potter, rushed in from the other room, urgent questions dying unasked on her lips as she looked through the settling dust to the ethereal skull and serpent hanging above the garden.  
"Take him, Lily, run!" James Potter yelled, throwing baby Harry to her in an enchanted pass. Lily, however, stood stock-still, feet rooted to the ground, and Hermione was unable to hear what she was shouting to her husband, for a tall figure in sweeping black robes had just walked through the door.  
"Good evening, Potters," Lord Voldemort said. "I do hope I'm not interrupting. It's just, well, I've come to murder you."  
"Lily!" James bellowed. "Take Harry and run!"  
With a wave of his gloved hand, Voldemort fixed Lily to the spot.  
"Now Potter..." he stopped, and looked right in the direction of the older Harry, Ron and Hermione. "Visitors?" he asked. "Well, well. How tiresome. _Avada_--"  
"_Expelliarmus_! _Petrificus totalus_! _Disapparatus_!" the three students yelled simultaneously, wands outstretched. Voldemort exploded with a meaty _splat_ as the three curses intertwined, showering the rubble of the wall behind him with bits of flesh and bone.   
  
All three of them looked stunned for about half a second, until a bang rather like the noise an exploding balloon makes engulfed them all, sweeping them back into nothingness. Hermione could see Harry and Ron buffeted in the sudden wind, and the scene in front of them started to swirl before their eyes, moving away first slowly and then faster. She felt rather than saw herself being pulled closer to Harry and Ron, raising an arm to fend herself off, but instead coalesced right through Harry. Stunned, she tried to swing herself back towards him, but realised that she could see right _through_ him.  
  
It was as if she was watching a Muggle film, she thought. All of Harry's formative experiences, from the green light of Voldemort's curse to finding himself on top of his prep school kitchens to escape Dudley's gang to Hagrid's entrance into the small hut on the rock where he had been given his Hogwarts Letter to Cedric Diggory's death -- all the experiences that made Harry who he was, that gave him his essential Harryness, were laid out in front of Hermione. Unwillingly, she drifted away from him and towards Ron, and saw a similar effect -- from images of seven Weasley children running around the Burrow to the Mirror of Erised to the rockfall in the Chamber of Secrets to his first Quidditch match for Gryffindor -- it was all there, plain for her to see.  
  
Only then did she look around her, for her own experiences were displayed as if on a sphere. Her parents, books, the wardrobe moment, kissing Harry, kissing Draco, kissing Viktor Krum...it was all there, especaially the amazing number of book pages flying around in the middle. She spotted a diagram from _Hogwarts: A History_, a picture from a S.P.E.W. pamphlet, a line drawing of a Manticore...the essences of all three of them were floating like bubbles through, well, whatever they were floating through. She noticed the bubbles of Harryness and Ronness converging with hers, and for a brief moment felt as if she were everywhere and nowhere at once. The moment was, however, only brief, as she was grabbed out of her bubble, soaring upwards. She could see Harry and Ron being similarly extracted as all three bubbles burst into fragments, and then they were lying on the floor of Professor Flitwick's classroom, with only Professors Dumbledore, McGonagall and Flitwick present, all looking as if the three students had just died.   
  
Hermione blinked and McGonagall's eyes narrowed. "Miss Granger?" she asked quietly. "Can you hear me?"  
Hermione wanted to say yes but her voice wouldn't let her. None of her body was working.  
"Blink three times if you can hear me," McGonagall said, and Hermione did so gratefully. The wave of relief which washed over all three of the Professors' faces was palpable. "You've been out for hours. We were quite concerned for you."  
"Harry?" Dumbledore was saying, "can you hear me?"  
  
The next few hours were something of a bore. All three of their bodies eventually snapped back into use, and Madam Pomfrey declared them fit and able to return to their common rooms as long as they didn't leave them for the rest of the evening. Hermione frowned -- she was sure that Harry would want to tell Draco -- but kept quiet.  
  
"We will interview you in the morning if that's all right," Dumbledore had said to them. "No need to be up for breakfast, just send me a message with Hedwig, Harry, and I'll have some sent up to my study."  
  
"What the hell was that?" Ron asked finally as they made their way through the portrait-hole.  
"Didn't come up in _A Precis Of Magical Jurisprudence_," Hermione said ruefully. Harry remained silent, sinking down into a chair in front of the fire, but then springing back up again, memories of the Pensieve obviously returning.  
"_Deignis,_" Hermione said at the fire with a wave of her hand, and the fire simply disappeared. "Harry, are you--"  
"All right? Oh, yes, shit like that happens to me every fucking day, Hermione," Harry snarled, pacing the floor like a cornered animal. "You know, wake up, brush teeth, read paper, have breakfast, blow the world's most evil wizard into dog food before lessons, the usual sort of thing. Nothing out of the ordinary...in fact I'd be surprised if it even came up in the Daily Prophet. You know, 'Hero Potter Kills You-Know-Who Again'." He continued in a raised voice -- a good imitation of Sumo Gregor, presenter of the Two Day Programme from the Wizarding Wireless Network, in fact -- "Hogwarts sources today denied that the most famous wizard in the world, Harry Potter, Head Boy of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, again killed He Who Must Not Be Named in a rematch using a Pensieve, with the help of Hermione Granger, Head Girl, and Ronald Weasley, Prefect and Quidditch Captain."  
  
Hermione gulped. She had never seen Harry this...what was it? Scared? Angry? Stunned? A mixture of all three? Judging by the look on his face, Ron hadn't either. Harry turned and strode quickly towards them. "Hermione, I'm sorry. I have no idea what happened, or why, or how... I always thought that Pensieve participants couldn't interact with the reality."  
"Me too," Ron said. "But only You-Know-Who could see us. Lil--er, nobody else could."  
"But the effects can't be permanent, or else Harry wouldn't be here, would he?" Hermione asked.   
"Obviously not," said Harry bluntly.  
  
Hermione thought about how Harry must be feeling at that moment, and realised that she knew. Knew not only how he was feeling, but what he was thinking as well. "Harry..."  
"...we all know..." Harry interrupted.  
"...what the others are thinking," Ron finished.  
"Oh, shit." Harry didn't mince words. "Not only did we just turn Voldy into a Big Mac, but we're now mental Siamese twins? This _is_ a little much for one day."  
"So that means you all know about--" Hermione began.  
"--the wardrobe," Harry and Ron finished.  
"And the--" Ron started.  
"spyhole into the girls showers," Harry and Hermione finished.  
"And --" Harry groaned.  
"Cho." Ron and Hermione concluded.  
"Bollocks," they chorused.  
  
* * *  
  
It wasn't easy to conceal their newfound ability from the teachers and other students for the rest of the term. After all, Hermione said philosophically, it wasn't as if they were telepathically communicating. They had just all shared every experience of each others' lives and knew everything that the others did up until that day in April. After that...it was down to simply realising how the others actually processed thoughts, but it was easy enough to do with practice. As time passed, the ability to complete each others' sentences weakened, but the knowledge they had gained remained the same.  
  
Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil were particularly interested in what had happened with the Pensieve as it had been one of Professor Trelawney's rare accurate predictions. Apparently, she had told the girls that "a great meeting of minds will happen today," which they had initially put down to the International Confederation of Very Intelligent Warlocks meeting in the Great Hall all day, but later had realised that the prediction could equally easily have covered the Pensieve incident.  
  
The NEWTs, however, almost completely took their mind -- and the teachers' minds -- off the Pensieve. Harry and Ron only just had time to squeeze in Quidditch practice between study sessions. "Honestly," Ron had said, "you'd think Hermione was rubbing off on us."  
  
Eventually, to a mixture of joy and sadness, the examinations were over and it was the final day of term. Harry, Ron and Hermione said their good-byes to all the Hogwarts staff and, in a whirlwind of activity, everyone was back on the Hogwarts Express, heading back to London and Platform 9 3/4. It was a tearful time for everyone in the first four carriages, as good-byes were said, addresses exchanged and promises made to meet in Diagon Alley when the NEWT results were relased by the Department of Magical Education.  
  
"Oh, yes," Neville was saying, "if my Herbology results come through all right, I'll be joining the Ministry of Magic's Herbology Department. Professor Sprout put me in contact with the chief wizard there."  
  
Seamus Finnigan had been signed to the Bruton Barbarians Quidditch team as Reserve Chaser, and Dean Thomas was looking into joining Gringotts. Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil had decided to take a year out and research Divination at Hogwarts with Professor Trelawney.  
  
"So what're you doing, Harry?" Seamus was keen to know.  
"Well," Harry said enthusiastically, "I'm entering a course for Magids up in Scotland, at St Andrews. Dumbledore recommends it highly."  
"And I'm joining him," Ron put in, "but I'll be taking Advanced Charms with Applied Potions. It's a new course, just started this year."  
"And I've got a research job with the British Wizarding Library up there, catalogueing and investigating Arithmancical History while studying for my Master of Wizardry," Hermione said.  
"Sounds enthralling," Ron grinned. "Will you be coming up to the sunlight, or do we have to call in that American Auror, what's her name, Boofy or Bufty or something. She specialises in creatures who are afraid of the light, y'know."  
"Very funny, Ron," Hermione said. She would have said more but the magically amplified voice announcing the imminent stop at King's Cross cut her off.   
  
All of the Gryffindors took one last look at each other, and Ron pulled out his camera, asking them all to pose. Snapping off a few shots, he slipped it back into the bag and grinned. "I'll send some on."  
  
It was mayhem on Platform 9 3/4. First-years ran towards their parents, seventh-years hung behind, not wanting their magical time at Hogwarts to end, and the rest lugged trunks, pets and smaller siblings towards the end of the platform.  
  
Draco Malfoy walked up to Harry, Ron and Hermione with a smile on his face. "Come on, Harry, you're lagging behind. Again."  
"Shut up, Draco," Harry said, but smiled. It seemed like a very long time since they had last spoken, but it was in fact only yesterday. It just hadn't seemed right, somehow, not to mention against Hogwarts rules, to let Draco into their Common Room.  
  
"There are Sirius and mother," Draco said, waving madly. "Good-bye, Weasley, good-bye, Hermione. Feel free to visit."  
"And why do you rate first-name basis, Hermione?" Ron asked pointedly.  
"Ron, you already know, so don't even think about asking me," Hermione snapped back.  
"Weasley, do open your eyes. The world really is an interesting place," Draco drawled. Ron would have turned him into a slimy creature or a pen, but settled for only making little ferret faces at him behind Narcissa Black's back. Hermione kissed Ron, Harry, Draco and Sirius and ran over to hug her parents, who, despite seven years of a daughter at Hogwarts, had never quite got used to the people appearing from between Platforms 9 and 10.  
  
Sirius, Narcissa, Harry and Draco wandered over to where Molly Weasley had Ron and Ginny in a hug. "Did you drive, Molly?" he asked. "No, Arthur did, but he couldn't find a parking space," Mrs Weasley said. "He's waiting outside near the door. Do you need a lift to Diagon Alley?"  
"No, we'll be fine," Sirius said, motioning to Harry and Draco. "Magids in the family, you know."  
Molly Weasley smiled and raised an eyebrow at Sirius. "Well, at least _respectable_ folk like us don't have to worry about our roof being blown off."  
"Didn't Fred and George do that last year, Mum?" Ginny asked, winking at Harry.  
Her mother blushed and chuckled. "Well, it wasn't the _whole_ roof..."  
"That's not what you told _them_," Ron pointed out.  
"Well, come along, Ron, your father's waiting outside," Molly said. "And goodness knows what Muggle contraptions he'll have fixed his eye on now..."  
"Bye," Ron said over his shoulder as they walked off, past the WH Smith newsagent and out of the station. Harry headed towards Hermione, while Draco remained behind.  
  
"And we're on the 2.49," Hermione's father was saying.  
"But Dad, it's 2.47 now," Hermione pointed out.  
"What?" he spun to face the large board with departure times. "Quick! Run!"  
"Bye Harry!" Hermione yelled as she pushed the trolley with her trunk laden on top towards Platform 5.   
  
"'Bye'?" Draco said to Harry as they walked towards the Portkey around the corner which led to Diagon Alley. "Is that all your best friends managed? Poor Pansy Parkinson was crying her eyes out when Dashing Draco bid her adieu."  
"Draco, now is just _not_ the time," Harry growled, turning away to rub the tears out of his eyes.  
  
* * *


	2. I Know What You Did Last Summer

**Harry Potter and the Song of Time  
By Crazy Ivan**  


  
Author's Note: Our story begins in Harry & Co.'s final year at Hogwarts, and moves quickly on to the first year of post-Hogwarts life. Our heroes start at the Institute in St Andrews, Britain's finest place of higher wizarding education. Friends old and new pop up in the strangest of places, and we delve into the very meaning of Time itself!  
  
Parts of the story are loosely inspired by, extrapolated from and refer to _Draco Dormiens_ by Cassandra Claire, who has kindly given her consent to the use of Magids and 'her' Draco and his new outlook on life. It was written before the completion of _Draco Sinister_, so not all ideas in that story may be taken on board -- particularly the Heir theme. Neither is it a sequel to _DD_ or _DS. _We also go against JKR's own canon statements that there is no wizarding education past Hogwarts. Why? Because that's what fanfic is for, dammit!  
  
**Disclaimer**: I make no claims to be JKR -- or, for that matter, Cassandra Claire. Mainly because I'd look silly in a dress, but also because I respect and acknowledge their copyrighted material. Rave owns the Chimney Sweep song (I think...) and Penumbri owns Draco's Ducky Socks.  
  
All new material, however, is mine. All mine. And, to quote British Magical Rail, if you steal it, use it in any moneygrubbing gobliny sort of way, or do anything else with it that would upset my grandmother, "We Will Send Large Hairy Thugs Round To Your House To Pull Off Your Toenails".  
  
For reasons of language, this story is rated "R". Hey, eighteen-year-olds swear, drink, and have, er, relations sometimes.  
  


**Chapter One: "I Know What You Did Last Summer"**  


  
"And now, the news at oh-nine-hundred British Wizarding Time on August first, 1998," the radio next to Harry's bed blared, its alarm function working for once.  
"The Department of Magical Education today announced that results for NEWTs and OWLs from Hogwarts School can be collected from their Espeche Alley Enquiries Centre from ten a.m. Those students unable or too lazy to come to Espeche Alley will receive their results by owl in two days time. Students arriving at Espeche Alley are reminded, for Health and Safety reasons, that Espeche Alley is closed for Apparation today. Floo Powder is recommended, although extra broom landing spaces have been provided. In other news this morning..."  
  
Harry threw the duvet off his bed and swung his legs over the end. He grabbed his dressing-gown and towel from the peg and, wrapping the gown around his chest, kicked off his pajama bottoms and headed out into the corridor, hearing but not fully comprehending a rather pleasing tenor voice singing a rather lewd song by Flanders and Swann, that famous wizarding musical duo. He came to the bathroom door and, half-asleep still, pushed it open. The startled yell from the figure in the shower prompted Harry to wake up to see Draco wrapped in and attempting to conceal himself behind the bright yellow shower curtain, water cascading from his hair.  
  
"Do you mind?" Draco shouted.  
"Oh, shit, sorry, it was unlocked," Harry stammered, backing away and closing the door. He leaned against the corridor wall and ran his hands through his hair, which was being particularly disobedient this morning. Draco emerged a few minutes later, towel wrapped around his middle.  
"I can understand that you're thrilled by my bronzed, muscled Adonaic form, Harry, but you're just not my type," Draco said. "Besides, think what the Daily Prophet would say."  
"Good morning to you too, Draco," Harry said irritably, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and heading into the shower. He quickly scrubbed himself down, washed his hair and hurried back into the bedroom, where the Muggle clock he'd not quite got around to throwing out showed 9.15. He pulled on a pair of trousers and boots and rummaged around for a t-shirt to go under his new purple robes, full-length but made from a cooling material, trimmed with gold fabric. He grabbed the matching, trendy hat from above the wardrobe and headed downstairs.  
  
Harry tossed a bright "Morning!" to Sirius and Narcissa in the kitchen and nearly collided with Draco as they almost ran into the living room. Draco was looking particularly stylish in a high-cut dark grey robe with a pointed collar and a matching cape flowing behind him. They each grabbed a handful of Floo Powder and, before checking, threw it into the cold fireplace. "Bollocks," said Harry, reaching for his wand.  
"Actually, it's a wand," Draco said, lips pursed, trying not to grin as Harry lit the fire with his wand and gave Draco a very dirty look.  
"Espeche Alley!" Harry yelled at the fireplace and ran into it. He emerged at the fireplace in the Leaky Cauldron, nearly colliding with Neville Longbottom, who had just emerged himself. He looked back to see Draco entangled on arrival with a tall Ravenclaw whose names Harry could never remember -- it was Islington or Battersea de Something de Other, and he had transferred in from Beauxbatons in sixth year. He was also rumored to have had several off-on torrid affairs with Justin Finch-Fletchley of Hufflepuff.  
  
Cursing loudly, Draco disentangled himself and walked over to Harry, who was shaking Neville's hand. Hermione, Ron and the other Gryffindors appeared minutes later, and they all headed down to the DME's Enquiry Centre, located in Espeche Alley, just along from Ollivanders. A large crowd of students was already gathered, and a short, round, pompous-sounding wizard with a red face was shouting that the results would not be given out for another ten minutes. Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil were comparing their predictions of everyone's grades, placing particularly doom-and-gloom emphasis on Neville's results, so Hermione shot off a McGonagall Fires-of-Hell Look, which quieted them down somewhat.  
"I still don't believe that you can get a NEWT in Divination, of all things. Talk about fuzzy maths..."  
"Oh, Hermione, relax. Who do you think will employ them anyway?" Draco asked, an eyebrow askew at Lavender and Parvati. Padma Patil, Parvati's twin, shrugged and rolled her eyes at Draco, as if to say it wasn't her fault. He grinned back in reply, but then a tall head came between them, talking excitedly to Parvati. Draco nudged Harry. "What's that chap's name?" he asked, pointing at the tall Ravenclaw with whom he had been entangled on arrival and who was now blocking his view of the rather shorter Padma.  
  
"Search me," Harry said. "Paddington de Claret de Chardonnay, I think. Ravenclaw, though."  
"Really, Harry," Hermione tutted. "As former Head Boy, you should know that his name is Kensington Cartwright de Plume. And he's highly intelligent. Despite the fact he did Divination." She snarled the last word as if it was an Unforgivable Curse, but looked dreamily at Kensington.  
"Forget it, Herm," Draco said, eyebrows furrowed mischievously. "He, how shall I put it...enjoys broomstick riding."  
"He doesn't play Quidditch, though," Hermione said, not quite understanding the metaphor.  
"We're not talking about Quidditch, Hermione," Harry grinned. "He's interested in other people's wands. Get it?"  
"No," Hermione said. "Surely spells wouldn't work as well--"  
"Hermione, for someone as intelligent as you are, you can be very dense sometimes," Draco said, making little motions of tapping his two index fingers together. "He plays for the other side. And no, I'm not talking Dark Magic."  
Understanding dawned on Hermione's face. "Oh! I--er--see. He's--er--"  
"--like Remus," Harry finished for her, and Draco turned inquiringly to him.  
"You never told me that Lupin..."  
"You never asked. Besides, he's...involved."  
"_Involved_?"  
"Yes, with a bloke from the States. They've got a very nice flat in Knightsbridge," Harry said. "Right around the corner from Harrod's."  
  
If Draco wanted to know more, he didn't have the opportunity to ask, for at that moment a large flock of tiny owls, smaller than Pigwidgeon, exploded from the window above the Enquiry Centre and dove at the students below. Each owl headed for one student, dropping a large fancy envelope with the Hogwarts and Department of Magical Education crests on the top, bordered with small green flowers, into their hands and flocking back to the window. The hushed silence broken only by the sounds of opening seals which ensued would have been comical if any of them were not utterly paranoid about the letters' contents.  
  
"Yes!" someone yelled, shattering the silence, which was followed by more whooping. The crowd erupted almost entirely into cheers, hugs and shrieks of happiness. There were a couple of disappointed faces, but none of them were from Gryffindor. Hermione had got five As (in Transfiguration, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Charms, Arithmancy and Wizarding Literature), Harry and Draco both three As (in Transfiguration, Defense Against the Dark Arts and Charms for Harry and Transfiguration, Defense Against the Dark Arts and Potions for Draco). Ron had got an A and two Bs, and Neville had got an A in Herbology, a B in Care of Magical Creatures and a D in Charms.  
  
Harry, Hermione, Ron and Draco were swept up in the mass group hug which ensued. Harry caught sight of Neville crying with joy, results certificate clenched in his hand, and hugged Hermione even tighter. The crowd of students eventually, after much prodding from the DME staff, headed towards the Leaky Cauldron and the large function room which had been set aside especially for them. It seemed strange, Harry thought, to see everyone in anything but Hogwarts' black robes -- Neville was wearing a rather bright yellow robe, Hermione a deep emerald, Ron a Chudley Cannons orange one, all trimmed with matching or opposite colours. Several of the Slytherins, including Draco, were in variations on the black theme, but with greys and charcoals thrown in for good measure. Pansy Parkinson, as usual, was clinging to Draco as if he was going to disappear if she didn't -- which was probably true. He looked about as happy as a rabbit in headlights, and started looking meaningfully at Harry as if to say 'rescue me'.  
  
The entire staff of the Leaky Cauldron were on hand to dish out butterbeer from a large barrel, as well as Buckfast Tonic Wine for those who didn't like butterbeer. Harry clinked mugs with Ron, Hermione, Neville, Seamus, Dean, Draco, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Ernie MacMillan and several other people whose names, at that moment, he was having trouble remembering, including the boy who was named after a part of London. Chiswick, was it? Holborn? Harry shook his head and quickly forgot about it as Seamus thumped him on the back in celebration, splashing his butterbeer. The students organically mingled into several different groups, each discussing much the same thing -- what to do next. Harry, Hermione and Ron had all got the grades they needed to get into their courses, Neville was into the Ministry, Dean in the Gringotts training programme and Seamus, whose reserve Chaser position with the Barbarians didn't require any particular grades, was congratulating them all and helping to drink the butterbeer. This brew, unlike the stuff they'd been served previously at the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade and elsewhere, was fully alcoholic butterbeer, and Lavender Brown was looking rather tipsy after her second mug.  
  
"I think I f'got to have breakf'sht," she slurred to Parvati, who quickly tapped her friend's head with a _Insobrius_ charm, which helped to refocus Lavender's eyes. Ron sniggered and pointed at Lavender, who, despite Parvati's efforts, was still having difficulty remaining on her feet. "I _predict_ that she's going to have one hell of a hangover."  
Hermione sniggered. "For once, Ron, I'll agree with a prediction."  
  
The group of students started to get more and more hammered, until Justin Finch-Fletchley, who had been Head Chorister, stood on a table as Ernie MacMillan started to shout for quiet.  
  
"I would like, if I may, to sing you a verse of my favorite song. It's called 'I May Be A Tiny Chimney Sweep But I've Got A Large Broom.' It goes a little shomething like thish..." Justin shuffled on his table and started to sing.  
  
"Ohhhhhhh,  
The chimneys were dirty at Mrs McFry's  
And I'll grant they were worse down at Molly O'Clue's  
But the chimney sweep said, with a gleam in his eye  
'I've got a great tool here for...cleaning the flu-u-uuuues...  
  
'For I may be a tiny chimney sweep  
With a tiny grimy face,  
But I'm carrying a broom that makes strong girls weep,  
Won't you let me up, up, up your fireplace?'"  
  
The drunken crowd of students roared with laughter as Justin accompanied his song with some rather vulgar arm movements. Harry noticed Piccadilly de Montfort de Rah, or whatever Justin's Ravenclaw ex was called, blushing from his chin to his ears at the refrain. He put his arm around Hermione, who staggered slightly. Harry wasn't sure that he'd ever seen her so 'merry'. At that point, the crowd thundered applause for Justin's song, which he'd not quite got through, being rather smashed as he was.  
  
Harry and Ron led Hermione over to the corner to some mild, ineffectual protests. "I'm not dwunk," she clamored, trying to swat their hands away but managing instead to punch Ron on the nose.  
"Of gorse you're dot, Herbiodee," Ron muttered, scowling heavily and rubbing his nose with his free hand. Stepping over the now-horizontal Lavender Brown, he and Harry sat Hermione on a wooden chair and passed her a large glass of water.  
"Drink this, Hermione," Harry said, grinning.  
"It'sh not funny!" Hermione said indignantly.  
"Oh, I dunno," Ron said.  
Neville fairly bounced over, still grasping his results certificate in one hand and a mug of butterbeer in the other. "Oh dear, I think I'm going to be ill," he announced, and promptly hurried off towards the gents loos, watched by an amused Ron and Harry. Hermione had started to snore softly.  
  
"Ish Hermione dwunk?" Seamus asked as he and Dean staggered over.  
"Yeah," Harry said, eyeing the two Gryffindors, who weren't in that good a state themselves.  
"I know a good anti-drunkienesh shpell," Dean said, tripping over his tongue.  
"No, Dean, wait!" Harry cried, but Dean already had his wand out and had yelled "_Exaquis_!", confusing the spell used to relieve drunkenness with one used to drench a fire. About ten bucketfuls of water exploded out of Dean's wand, cascading over Hermione and splashing Harry and Ron. Hermione jerked awake, water dripping over her eyes. "Have we gone shwimming, Hawwy?" she muttered, and fell back asleep again.  
"Dean!" Harry and Ron yelled as one of the Leaky Cauldron staff bustled over, waving a wand to get rid of the water.  
"S'all right, lads, don't worry 'bout it," the plump wizard said with a smile. "Let your 'air down, that's all right."  
  
Harry looked at Ron. "Think she'll be okay?"  
"She'd better be," Draco said from behind him, clapping an arm around Harry.  
  
"Uh oh," Ron said as a large group of Hufflepuffs descended on them, clamoring for Harry and Draco to sing for them. Reluctantly, Harry stood on the table recently vacated by Justin, now sprawled over three chairs at the side of the room, and Draco clambered up next to him.  
"Just remember," Draco muttered, "this was your idea."  
  
"We're going to do a Flanders and Swann number," Harry yelled, and the drunken rumble reduced itself to a tremor. Draco coughed once and, in a lilting tenor, began:  
  
"She was young, she was pure, she was new, she was nice,  
She was fair, she was sweet seventeen.  
He was old, he was vile, and no stranger to vice,   
He was base, he was bad, he was mean.  
He slyly envigled her up to his flat  
To view his collection of stamps  
And he said as he hastened to put out the cat, the wine, his cigar and the laaaaaamps:"  
  
At this point, Draco stopped and looked at Harry, who continued in a a deep baritone voice:  
"'Have some madeira, M'dear  
You really have nothing to fear  
I'm not trying to tempt you, that wouldn't be right  
You shouldn't drink spirits at this time of night  
Have some madeira, M'dear  
It's very much nicer than beer  
I don't care for sherry, one cannot drink stout  
and port is a wine I can well do without  
It's simply a case of chacun à son gout  
Have some madeira, M'dear!'"  
  
Harry gestured expansively to Draco, who resumed his narration:  
"Unaware of the wiles of the snake in the grass  
The fate of the maiden who topes  
She lowered her standards by raising her glass  
Her courage, her eyes and his hopes  
She sipped it, she drank it, she drained it, she did  
He quietly refilled it again  
And he said, as he secretly carved one more notch  
on the butt of his gold-handled caaaaane..."  
  
Harry grinned and again boomed:  
"'Have some Madeira, M'dear  
I've got a small cask of it here.  
And once it's been opened, you know it won't keep  
Do finish it off, it'll help you to sleep  
Have some Madeira, M'dear  
It's really an excellent year  
Now if it were Gin you'd be wrong to say yes  
The evil gin does would be hard to assess  
Besides, it's inclined to affect me prowess  
Have some Madeira, M'dear!'"  
  
Draco, with Harry inserting bits of the man's speech, continued:  
"Then flashed through her mind what her mother had said   
with her antipenultimate breath:"  
Draco's voice went up into a strong falsetto,   
"'Oh, my child, if you look on the wine that is red  
then prepare for a fate worse than death!'"  
and returned to its normal tenor.  
"She let go the glass with a shrill little cry  
Crash! Tinkle! It fell to the floor.  
When he asked", Draco paused. "'What in heaven?'" Harry rumbled.  
"she made no reply,  
Up her mind, and a dash for the door." Draco looked at Harry.  
"'Have some Madeira, M'dear'" Harry boomed,  
"Rang out down the hall, loud and clear  
A tremulous cry that was filled with despair  
As she paused to take breath in the cool midnight air." Draco grinned.  
"'Have some Madeira, M'dear!'" Harry thundered.  
"The words seemed to ring in her ear,  
Until the next morning, she woke up in bed  
With a smile on her lips and an ache in her head  
And a beard in her earhole that tickled and sa-a-aid," Draco hung on the last note, until Harry finished,  
"'Have some Madeira, M'dear!'"  
  
The applause was so loud that not only did it wake Hermione, but Lavender sat up and bumped her head into Seamus' knee, knocking herself out cold. From then on, the party rather degenerated, and Harry found himself and Draco carrying an utterly gone Hermione and an only slightly less drunk Ron in the direction of the fireplace, where they found Professors McGonagall and Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey sitting in casual robes around the table.  
  
"Good afternoon, Harry," McGonagall said. Harry frowned, feeling that something was wrong, until he realised that this was the first time that she had used his first name.  
"Afternoon, Professor?" Harry asked, confused. "Isn't it evening?"  
"Please, Harry, call me Minerva," McGonagall said, and Harry gulped. That would take some getting used to.  
"And no, Harry, it's not evening," Dumbledore said, smiling, "but I'm sure it feels like it. We are just here to make sure that you all get home safely."  
"And I," Madam Pomfrey said, "am to make sure that you're all right to travel through the Floo."  
"Don't worry," McGonagall said, "We're using a special, one-way Floo Powder. It'll only take you to one particular grate."  
  
"Is that like Summoning Powder?" Harry asked, remembering the first time he'd seen that used, when Severus Snape had Summoned Remus Lupin into his office through the fire.  
  
"Exactly, but the opposite," Dumbledore said. "Now, where are you going?"  
"Home," Harry said, rubbing his eyes.  
"Which is...?" Dumbledore said kindly.  
"Sorry. Sirius Black's house, used to be Malfoy Mansion."  
"All four of you?" McGonagall said, raising her eyebrows.  
"Well..." Harry said, looking at Draco, "Hermione's folks aren't used to wizard drinks, and Fred and George would never let Ron forget it if he came home like that, especially if--"  
"Yes," Draco interrupted, "to answer your question, Minerva, all four of us."  
"It's number 3745, Albus," McGonagall said a few moments later, as she looked up Malfoy Mansion in the Floo Directory. Dumbledore waved his wand over a large handful of the powder and said "Three Seven Four Five" very clearly. Standing, he threw it in the fire and motioned Harry and Draco, carrying Hermione and Ron, through the fireplace.  
  
* * *  
  
Sirius couldn't stop himself laughing. Knowing what the students were in for, he'd invited Remus and his partner, Tacitus "Bud" Lieghte, around to watch them stumbling home. It was about three in the afternoon when the fireplace flashed and the four stumbled through and straight into the large pool of water which Sirius had planted in their way. Harry and Draco looked up, astonished, while Ron snored loudly and Hermione muttered "No, not a Grindylow!" to nobody in particular.  
  
"Surprise!" Sirius beamed. "Welcome to 'Who Wants To Have A Wizard Hangover?'! I'm your host, Sirius Black, and this is my lovely assistant, Remus Lupin."  
"I'll take 'a large glass of water' for three hundred, Sirius," Harry muttered.  
"No, Harry, that's the wrong show," Sirius said in a stage whisper.  
"Oh, Sirius, let them be," Narcissa said, smiling down at the four drenched wizards.  
"Yeah, let us be, you big bully," Draco said in his best imitation of a little boy voice.  
"Not convincing, Draco," Remus said with a smirk. "Draco Malfoy, you had this much dignity," and he spread his arms wide, "but you just lost this much," and he narrowed them slightly. "Congratulations to Draco Malfoy, who goes to bed with this much dignity intact!", leaving about an inch between thumb and forefinger.  
"Sadist," Draco muttered as he half-dragged Ron upstairs and into one of the guest rooms. Sirius followed and, taking off Ron's wet robes, covered him up with the duvet.  
"He'll sleep for _hours_," Sirius said, grinning, and they left to find Narcissa coming out of Hermione's guest room with an amused look on her face.  
"Good night, boys," she said to Harry and Draco, who headed off to their rooms, slipped their robes to the floor, crawled into bed and under the covers and fell instantly asleep.  
  
* * *  
  
When Harry awoke, he glanced at the Muggle clock on the wall and realised that it was six o'clock. He reached over for his glasses, knocking over a glass of water in the process. Cursing loudly, he jammed his glasses on his face and staggered over to draw the curtains. It was a particularly nice evening, with the sun still fairly high in the sky, and Remus and Bud were piling charcoal up in the huge barbecue at the end of the garden. Harry pulled his dressing-gown down from the peg, walked carefully but in a zig-zag down to the bathroom, and stood under the shower until someone hammering on the door jerked him out of his hangover-induced reverie.  
  
"Whuh--coming," he yelled, turning the shower off with a word and stepping onto the large fuzzy bath-mat. He towelled off quickly with his large red towel embroidered with a golden 'H' and rewrapped the dressing-gown around himself. He emerged into the corridor to find Hermione, legs crossed, leaning against the wall with her eyes clenched shut, hair sticking up in a near-mohawk at the back.  
  
"Men! Bloody loo-hogs!" she grunted as she scuttled into the bathroom. Harry smiled, hangover beginning to disappear, and sauntered back into his room. He pulled on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, running his hands through his hair. Giving up on any chance of making it behave, he wandered down to the kitchen where Sirius was throwing a lump of ground beef from hand to hand, together with some onions, to make his special homemade burgers. Narcissa was stirring her excellent balsamic vinaigrette dressing and Draco was mixing up a huge jug of Pimms no. 1, garnished with slices of orange, apple, lemon and cucumber. Harry grabbed a pint glass from the cupboard and drank four pints of water in succession, to everyone's amusement.  
  
"The Prodigal returns," Sirius said, poking Harry in the ribs with a wooden spoon on his way past.  
"Ungh," Harry said, clearing his throat as he realised that his powers of speech had not yet returned.  
"Would that be 'ungh, yes' or 'ungh, no,' dear?" Narcissa asked as she took the salad out of the refrigerator.  
"Ungh, yesh," Harry mumbled, grabbing a roll and stuffing it into his mouth.  
"Don't, dear," Narcissa said, slapping his wrist with a salad server as she retrieved them from a drawer. "You'll spoil your supper."  
"Is Ron up yet?" Harry managed through a mouth of roll.  
"Yes, but he's having an intimate head-to-bowl relationship with the downstairs loo," Draco said, eyes sparkling.  
"Ah," said Harry.  
"Seen Hermione?" This was Sirius.  
"She dashed into the bathroom after me," Harry replied. "She was a bit, er, taken short."  
"I was not," Hermione said from the door, wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt saying "Nobody Knows I'm A Witch" in large letters which she had enchanted to change color every few seconds. Harry thought that if he looked at it for long enough he'd be quite ill. "You were just hogging the bathroom. Typical man."  
"That's the cauldron calling the kettle black," Sirius muttered with a sideways glance at Narcissa, who rapped his knuckles with a long baguette.  
"Behave, dear," she said affectionately.  
"Would you two please stop the personal displays of affection?" Draco said, frowning at them.  
"Yeah," Hermione said, hands on hips in an excellent impression of Minerva McGonagall. "Anyone would think you were in love or something."  
Draco shot her a dark look. "It's all right for you, Hermione, it's not _your _mother!"  
"Sorry, Draco dear," Narcissa said, not sounding all that sorry.  
"S'all right," Draco grumped and turned back to the water biscuits he was unwrapping and arranging around a rather ripe-looking Camembert on a plate.  
  
At that point, Ron came into the kitchen, shaking water from his hands and looking a little less green than he had before monopolising the downstairs loo.  
"Feeling better, dear?" Narcissa asked brightly.  
"Ungh," Ron said, and everyone but him laughed.  
"Was that 'ungh, yes' or 'ungh, no'?" Harry asked between chuckles.  
"Ungh." Ron nodded. "Wa-er."  
Harry poured his friend a pint of water, which he downed and held out the glass for another.  
"Ank-oo."  
"Welcome," Harry said, reaching up for some Magical Milk of Magnesia and pouring some into a shot glass for Ron. "You'll need some of this too."  
Ron downed the starchy white liquid and grimaced. "I fink that would've tasted worse 'f I c'd taste it."  
"Very probably, dear," Narcissa said, taking his glass and washing it up. "But think of the good it's doing you."  
"Ungh," Ron repeated.  
  
"Barby's ready!" Remus yelled through the living room to the kitchen, clicking a long pair of tongs at them to hurry them up. Behind him, his partner Bud chuckled.  
"Any more beers, Narcissa?" Remus asked  
"Would you like a Bud, Remus?"  
"I've already got one, Narcissa," Remus said, prodding Bud with the tongs. Narcissa sighed dramatically and threw a bottle of beer at Remus.  
  
"I don't think I want to go out there with Remus brandishing those tongs at me," Draco said, pretending to cower behind the large jug of Pimms.  
"Don't be so wet," Hermione said, picking up the tray of nibbles and carrying it out. She emerged onto the large slate patio, dotted with large barrels of flowers which cascaded down. There were petunias, geraniums, pansies, alyssum and some that Hermione's Herbology OWL didn't quite cover. A large wooden table surrounded by eight chairs was covered with a colorful blue gingham tablecloth and laid out with Narcissa's favorite table setting, a different color plate and colored glasses for each person.  
  
Harry stood beside the red setting, next to Draco's green and Sirius' purple. Narcissa put her glass of wine in front of the bright pink, and Hermione put her glass of dandelion and burdock near the yellow setting, next to Ron's orange. Remus' beer, above the blue set, was next to his partner Bud's peach-colored plate. Bud waved from the barbecue, where he was brushing the grill off to remove the flavors from the previous food. Sirius walked up to him with the exquisite-looking burgers and smiled. "Six minutes for each," he said.  
"Aye aye, captain," Bud said, taking a sip from his gin and tonic.  
  
Harry and Draco went back into the kitchen to pick up the last few things, bringing them out into the late evening sunshine which was starting to touch the tops of the tallest trees in the garden. Sirius walked around with his wand, tapping the tops of the tiki torches set around the patio and setting them alight.  
  
"What're those for?" Ron asked as he munched on a cracker.  
"They help to keep the flies away," Narcissa said. "It's so we don't have to put a Bugblatter charm on the patio, dear -- that sort of charm tends to keep the butterflies and hummingbirds away."  
  
"Oh," said Ron. They sat and sipped at the sweet, fruity Pimms until Remus yelled over that the burgers were ready. He wandered back over to a round of applause, and everybody tucked in.  
  
A surprisingly few minutes later, they had moved onto Narcissa's excellent gooseberry fool, creamy and smooth, and Sirius turned to Harry.   
"Well, how does it feel to have left school then?"  
"In a word, weird," Harry said, smiling. "It certainly doesn't _feel_ like the culmination of seven years of effort."  
"You can say that again," Ron said.  
"It certainly doesn't feel--"  
"Yes, yes," Draco said, flicking a piece of bread at Harry. "Smartarse."  
Harry blew a raspberry at him and continued. "It's also a bit scary -- Hogwarts was really the only constant in my life, ever since I left the Dursleys, since you, Sirius, since Voldemort...it's very strange to consider having left it."  
"I know what you mean," Hermione agreed. "Since I got the letter, I've automatically associated Hogwarts with magic. It's probably different for you and Draco, Ron, but that's how we Muggle-raised think."  
"Hmm," Draco said. "I suppose that _does_ make sense."  
  
"I was _so_ glad for Neville," Hermione said to Remus. "He got into the Ministry, just like he wanted."  
"As an Auror, like his parents?" Remus asked.  
"Not quite," Hermione smiled. "He's in the Herbology Department. He thinks that he'll be asked to go on research trips, and Professor Sprout agrees with him.  
"Huh. And what about that Irish boy, what's his name?"  
"Seamus Finnigan. Well, he's been signed to the Bruton Barbarians as Reserve Chaser."  
"Fantastic! And what about his friend, Dean, was it?"  
"Gringotts. He'll be off chasing a Gorgon who's been interfering with their mining efforts in Llanelli." Hermione sipped at her Pimms. "And, before you ask, Lavender and Parvati are doing Divination research with that old bat Trelawney." Hermione spat the last word out like a Cheek-Pinching Sourball.  
"Oh, dear Sybil, how is she?" Remus asked, nudging and winking at Hermione.  
"Not dead yet," Hermione said grimly.  
Remus lifted his hands and started to wiggle his fingers. "I sense tension...anger..."  
"You're about to sense a nasty Charm, Moony," Hermione growled.  
"Help! Harry, she's going to hex me!" Remus whimpered.  
"Quick, get the Dementors!" Draco said, sarcasm dripping from his tongue.  
"Well, when are you all thinking of heading up to St Andrews?" Narcissa said, referring to the location of the wizarding community's most prestigious research and higher education institution.  
"Hmm," Harry said. "Well, term starts on September 15th...so I was thinking maybe get up there for the first -- go see Hagrid and everyone at Hogwarts one day. It's only a few miles away, we could even go on broomstick."  
"I've not told you about the offer of a position I've had, have I?" Sirius asked.  
"No," Harry said, frowning. "In fact, you hadn't told us anything at all about positions."  
  
"Oh, no, we're just _not_ going there," Draco said, backing away and holding a warding hand out.  
"Draco!" Hermione said. "Your mind is like a Welsh railway!"  
"What?" Draco looked confused.  
"One-track and dirty," Hermione explained patiently.  
"Oh. Oh! Cow," he muttered.  
"Ahem," Sirius coughed. "As I was trying to say..."  
"Sorry," said Draco.  
"Anyway, I'm thinking of taking up a teaching job in Temporal Mechanics," Sirius said. "It involves working with Ludmilla Vachova, though."  
  
The four students looked at each other, the last reference having passed them by. "Who?" Harry asked.  
"Ludmilla Vladimirovna Vachova," Sirius explained, "is the Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, and Chairwitch of the Department of Applied Temporal Mechanics. She has the personality of a dead tree-rat and the interpersonal communication skills of a reporter for Witch Weekly."  
"Nothing wrong with Witch Weekly," Narcissa said, prodding him.  
"Of course not, dear. Anyway, Ludmilla Vladimirovna is a bit of an old bat, not to put too fine a point on it." Sirius took a large gulp of his Pimms. "And I'm seriously considering taking up the post."  
  
"You should, Sirius," Hermione said seriously. "It's a fantastic opportunity, after all."  
"Yeah," said Draco. "And you can buy a large house and we can live there for free."  
"Now who's having delusions of adequacy?" Ron shot across Draco's bows.  
"Boys!" Narcissa looked shocked. "Behave yourselves."  
"Sorry, Mum," Draco said, and Ron mumbled an apology.  
"Well, at least you're not mellowing in old age, chaps," Remus said, chuckling. "Who knows, you might even get to the point of civility soon."  
  
The verbal sparring continued for a while as the evening darkened and the torches became the only sources of light, until Hermione gave an almighty yawn.  
"Well," Narcissa said motheringly, "I think it's time certain people went to bed."  
"Mother!" Draco sounded shocked, but his protest was cut off by a large yawn from Ron.  
"I certainly think we should move inside," Narcissa said. "The nightflies will be coming out any moment."  
"Yes, dear," Sirius said, rising and starting to clear, helped by Remus, Bud, Draco, Harry, Hermione and Ron. Once all the dishes had been removed to the kitchen, everyone decamped to the sitting-room and Sirius brought out the large decanter of port and a small fleet of glasses.  
  
"Urgh...alcohol..." Ron wibbled, looking green again at just the sight of it.  
"Oh, come on, Ron," Sirius said with a gleam in his eye. "It's a restorative."  
"Yeah, and it'll restore me right back to the downstairs loo."  
"Most likely," Sirius grinned.  
Ron frowned and went to fetch a large glass of water.  
  
The evening fairly degenerated from there. Despite his protests, Ron -- and everyone else -- did get quite drunk, and was even persuaded to join in a chorus of a particularly lewd song of which Narcissa did not quite approve. The evening ended, unsurprisingly, with several rounds of "I May Be A Tiny Chimney Sweep".  
  
As he lay in bed that night, Harry's thoughts were inexplicably drawn back to the incident with the Pensieve, and his dreams were filled with images of the swirling liquid with its shining thoughts. Somehow, he knew that this was terribly relevant, but went into a deep sleep before he could remember quite how and why.  
  
* * ***  
**


	3. The Snog of (all) Time

**Harry Potter and the Song of Time  
By Crazy Ivan**  


  
Author's Note: Our story begins in Harry & Co.'s final year at Hogwarts, and moves quickly on to the first year of post-Hogwarts life. Our heroes start at the Institute in St Andrews, Britain's finest place of higher wizarding education. Friends old and new pop up in the strangest of places, and we delve into the very meaning of Time itself!  
  
Parts of the story are loosely inspired by, extrapolated from and refer to _Draco Dormiens_ by Cassandra Claire, who has kindly given her consent to the use of Magids and 'her' Draco and his new outlook on life. It was written before the completion of _Draco Sinister_, so not all ideas in that story may be taken on board -- particularly the Heir theme. Neither is it a sequel to _DD_ or _DS. _We also go against JKR's own canon statements that there is no wizarding education past Hogwarts. Why? Because that's what fanfic is for, dammit!  
  
**Disclaimer**: I make no claims to be JKR -- or, for that matter, Cassandra Claire. Mainly because I'd look silly in a dress, but also because I respect and acknowledge their copyrighted material. Rave owns the Chimney Sweep song (I think...) and Penumbri owns Draco's Ducky Socks.  
  
All new material, however, is mine. All mine. And, to quote British Magical Rail, if you steal it, use it in any moneygrubbing gobliny sort of way, or do anything else with it that would upset my grandmother, "We Will Send Large Hairy Thugs Round To Your House To Pull Off Your Toenails".  
  
**(Style note: There is quite a bit of telepathic communication in this chapter, which is indicated by full sentences in _italics_. [As opposed to emphasis, which is only one or two words in italics.] Please make sure that your browser can read italics, or you might be confused.)  
**  
For reasons of language, this story is rated "R". Hey, eighteen-year-olds swear, drink, and have, er, relations sometimes.  
  
  


**Chapter Two: "The Snog of (all) Time"**  


  
"Tart," Ron said triumphantly to Hermione.  
"Four points," she replied snidely, considering her options. "Bastard."  
"Ohh, that's a double," he said. "You're too good at this, Hermione. I give up."  
"Look, Ron, you've got 'balls'," Harry put in. "You get four more words for that as well on the cross-score, look."  
"Aha! That's what, fifty-six points?"  
"Yep," Harry said, writing it down. "You're only four points behind."  
"Misogyne," Hermione grinned, placing the Y directly over a triple letter score and using the E from 'tertiary'. "Forty-two."  
  
Ron tipped his letter rack over. "Hermione, my brain hurts. You're far too good at this game. You're the only one who can beat me at it."  
"Has Draco tried? I hear he's a Scrabble whiz," Harry said. "At least, that's what Millicent Bulstrode told me."  
Hermione's head jerked up. "What were you doing talking to _that_...that _wench_?"  
"Okay, Hermione, think calmness, fluffy bunnies and pretty butterflies," Harry said. "Remember those things called 'lessons' that you like so much? And the one called 'Potions', which you didn't? Well, the uncallipygous Miss Bulstrode did study it, and so did I."  
Hermione eyed Harry cagily.  
"Bloody hell, Hermione, anyone would think you and Harry were going out!" Ron said jestingly.  
A rather pregnant silence ensued.  
"Oh, shit. You're not going out. You're--you're--" Ron stuttered, hands to temples.  
"No," Harry said after a pause so pregnant it could have been having triplets, "but it would have been worth it to see your face."  
"You _bastard_," Ron swore. "You _so_ had me going there."  
Hermione giggled. "Well, Harry, perhaps we could try it."  
  
Ron shot her his very best McGonagall Don'teventhinkaboutit Look. "Hey, if you two want to have it away, it's your business. But please, tell me? I'm _supposed_ to be your _friend_, remember?"  
"Ron, you'll be the first to know," Harry said placatingly. "Well, third, if you count Rita Skeeter and Sumo Gregor from the news media, as well as my autobiographer, publicist..."  
Harry was interrupted by two large fluffy pink cushions which bashed him on the side of the head. He looked up to see Ron and Hermione both glaring at him. "What? What did I say?"  
"It's all right for you, Harry. Nobody ever sent _you_ bubotuber pus through the post!" Hermione scolded.  
"And remember that time when, in Witches' Hour on WWN, Sumo Gregor accused me of lusting after Hermione, and thus 'denying you your true love'?" Ron asked pointedly. "And then, in the News of the Screws, we were accused of being secret lovers whose unrequited love could pull Hogwarts apart? Or was that you and Draco?" Ron asked, racking his brains.  
"I think that was the Harry/Draco relationship," Hermione contributed, trying in vain to hide a grin.  
"Have we finished yet?" Harry asked, with a look that threatened to turn them into Blast-Ended Skrewts if they weren't careful.  
"I don't know, have we, Ron?" Hermione mused.  
"Oh, I suppose so," Ron said reluctantly. "But it _is_ so much fun."  
  
"Ron!" Narcissa called from the doorway. "Your parents just owled to see when you were going home. Your mum asked me to remind you that you've relations coming for dinner."  
"Oh, bollocks," Ron said. "I forgot all about Auntie Brunhilda and Uncle Algie. I've got to get back home before dinner..."  
Harry grinned. "Now, no blowing them up, Ron," he said. "You'll only have everyone thinking you're trying to copy me."  
"Actually, they're all right," Ron admitted. "And Auntie Brunhilda always brings something foody for pudding. Last time it was a rather large Christmas cake, even though it was May."  
"Riiiiight," Harry said suspiciously. "Maybe I could do that with some of my Christmas presents."  
"Maybe," Hermione said. "Does anybody know someone who'd like a Santa-shaped toothbrush?"  
  
* * *  
  
Later that evening, Harry and Hermione were reclining in a hammock between two trees, watching the sun slide slowly down the sky. From its position, Harry estimated that it was about four in the afternoon.  
"Hermione," Harry said tentatively, "did you really think that us being, er, together would be awkward."  
"Most likely," she said, looking up from the latest copy of _New Witch_, which, according to the cover, contained '100 Useful Spells For The Bedroom'. "But for you, Harry, I'd do anything. Except, perhaps, do the whole bubotuber thing again. That would suck."  
"Really?" Harry asked.  
"Really. Harry, where is this leading?" Hermione asked. "I'm starting to feel that you're getting a bit heavy here."  
"You know, I think that Trelawney was wrong about your Inner Eye being clouded," Harry said. "I _am_ rather attracted to you, Hermione."  
"I know."  
"You _know_?"  
"Yes. It's a girl thing," Hermione explained. "Every woman can do it."  
"Oh."   
"Harry?"  
"Yes?"  
"I'm rather attracted to you too."  
"I know."  
"You--seriously?"  
"Yes," Harry said with a cheeky grin. "It's a guy thing."  
"Harry James Potter, you're a git," Hermione said, smacking his arm.  
"And proud of it. I'm sure I have my Gits United button around here somewhere..."  
Hermione snorted and put her arm around his neck. It was meant as a quasi-friendship, quasi-sensual gesture, but she felt the soft hair on the back of Harry's neck rise.  
  
"Hermione, do you...love me?"  
"At the risk of sounding like a shrink, what kind of love? Platonic, yes. Sexual...I could, easily."  
"Hmm."  
"Mr Potter. 'Hmm' is not an acceptable response to an answer like that." Hermione frowned at him. He was being _such_ a typical male. But she had to admit, it was a little bit cute.  
"How about eh-hmm?"  
"Harry!"  
"Sorry, sorry. Just baiting you."  
"I'd noticed." She smiled at him. _What am I doing? Am I coming onto him?_  
  
They swung silently in the hammock for a few minutes.  
"Hermione?"  
"Yes, Harry?"  
"Oh, bloody hell, we're sounding like a married couple."  
"We are, aren't we?" she admitted. He was right, after all.  
"I love you. I really do."  
Hermione held herself very still. "Yes?"  
"Oh, I'll spill it all out. I love everything about you. The way you look when you smile, the way you look when you think, your wit, your humour, your intelligence...I love it all."  
"Oh, Harry..." _No! I'm not going to go all mushy! Repeat after me. I am not going to go mushy. I am not going to--oh, sod it. _"I love you too."  
  
He put his other arm around her and smiled down at her.   
"Hermione, I have somewhere I'd like to show you. A very special place." Harry sounded deadly serious.  
Hermione looked up, mentally chiding herself for picking up on the double entendre. "Harry, have you found _another_ dungeon in this mansion?"  
"No, it's not another dungeon. Ever since I unearthed Draco's maternal great-grandmother's ghost in the one beneath the fountain, I've not gone looking for any. No, the place I'm thinking of isn't even in Malfoy Mansion," Harry said mysteriously.  
"Well, where is it?" Hermione asked impatiently.  
"You've got an Apparating license, right?" Harry asked.  
"Yeeeees..." Hermione said, not quite seeing where this was going.  
"Right. Since I can still sense where you are from the Pensieve link, can you do the same?"  
"Yes. And by the way, it's quite irritating sometimes," Hermione remarked.  
"Okay. I'm going to Apparate, and I want you to follow me."  
"All right. Shouldn't we tell Narcissa where we're going?"  
"Probably," said Harry, jumping down from the hammock and popping inside. Hermione's normally-organised mind was whirling. Was Harry about to ask her out? Where were they going? She saw him emerge from the house wearing a long scarlet cloak and carrying another one with him. _God, he looks hot,_ she thought to herself. _If he _does_ ask me...how will I ever say no?  
  
_"Ready?" Harry asked, handing her the cloak. "Put that on, it'll be cold."  
"Where are we going?"  
"Ahh...let's just say that it's north and west of here."  
"Ireland? Wales? Scotland? Iceland?"  
"Nope, not telling. Okay, follow me. If you can't, I'll be back in five minutes and we'll try something else."  
  
Harry stepped back from her and, raising his right hand above his head, closed it into a fist, drew it down along the centre of his body. Hermione watched him disappear into thin air and, closing her eyes, tried to find him in her mind. She searched in a northwesterly direction, sensing him still further ahead, until she found the blue coloured blob of mental space which was Harry. She made an expansive gesture with her hands and winked out of existence.  
  
* * *  
  
Hermione reappeared and opened her eyes. She was standing in a very green, verdant field of long grass which sloped quite steeply upwards to quite a wide crested peak and downwards very smoothly to a sandy beach glittering in the sun. In the background was a small grassy island with a couple of croft houses on it, and in the distance loomed a craggier, greyer outcrop which didn't much look like it could support life. Hermione looked around for Harry, but couldn't see him. Closing her mind, she spiralled out from herself, and spotted him on what was probably just the other side of the crest of the field. Hitching up her cloak, she started walking uphill. As she reached the crest, she stared over it. The ground fell away slightly for a few hundred feet, then dropping straight down about twice that distance. It curved away to the left, and Hermione could see the rocky cliffs with the waves crashing against them. It was quite windy and she drew the cloak around her arms, which were beginning to get goosebumps.  
  
She gasped as a pair of strong arms encircled her waist. She instantly knew that it was Harry, who she'd completely missed while being stunned by the scenery.  
"Gorgeous, eh?" Harry said quietly, as if wanting not to break the magic of the moment.  
"You cert--I mean, it certainly are. Is. _It_ certainly _is_," Hermione said. Why were all her faculties deserting her? For goodness' sake, this was _Harry_! Her best friend, her confidant, her study partner, her...love. It wasn't as if she didn't _know_ him, for goodness' sake.  
"Hermione?" his voice jerked her out of her reverie.  
Scrambling to regain composure and control of the situation, Hermione smiled at him. "Sorry, I was miles away."  
"I asked if you were cold."  
"No, thanks to the cloak," she said. "Harry, where are we?"  
  
"We're at the very tip of a peninsula on St Kilda," Harry explained. "It's way off the western coast of Scotland, and several hundred miles north of home. Oh, and it's one of the four days of sunshine they get in a year. This is one of those places to which I've always been drawn, I don't know why."  
  
_I bet I know why,_ Hermione said wryly to herself. _It's where he's going to seduce me and we're going to defeat all the evil in the world and hear lots of pitter-pattering of tiny feet._  
"What?" Harry said, incredulously.  
"Oh, shit, was that out loud?" Hermione sounded mortified and blushed a deeper red than her cloak.  
"Not really," Harry said, looking rather bashfully at her. "But you did think it rather loudly, and there is the residual link between us. It's especially amplified here. I couldn't help overhearing. Anyway...so much for unrequited love."  
_Okay, mental note to stop thinking to myself,_ Hermione thought very quietly in a very distant part of her brain.  
"Too loud," Harry said gently to her. "Sorry. I think it's because we're so close together. And because we're here." He indicated the island.  
_I'd give him close tog--no!_ By the look on Harry's face, he'd caught her slip.  
_Sodding hell, Harry, does this mean that we can do the whole telepathic thing?_ she thought loudly at him.  
_No need to shout,_ he murmured back to her. _And yes, I think it does._  
Hermione looked rather shaken. For the first time, she wouldn't be alone with her thoughts. _Any idea how to cut off the link?_ she thought at him.  
_Yes. Think of it as a loose thread in a piece of fabric. All you have to do is tie it up with your mind,_ Harry replied. _Watch closely._  
  
Hermione closed her eyes and watched the blue mental blob that was Harry extend what looked like several little blue tendrils, for lack of a better word, which started to play with the thin piece of mental thread linking the two of them together. The thread seemed to stretch and then snap back into the space between them rather like an elastic band.  
_Can you still hear me?_ she asked him, but got no reply. "Did you hear that?" she asked, eyes still shut.  
"Hear what?"  
"Guess not. Harry, how long have you been able to do that tendril thing? And what's it called? I've never seen it in any book."  
"It's _very_ advanced Neuromancy," he said. "Dumbledore taught me a bit in sixth year, but I only just learned how to break a link. I've got a book on it if you'd like. It's rather heavy going...but that's never stopped you before."  
"Harry!" Hermione wasn't all that annoyed. She knew, from the Pensieve incident, that her perseverance one of the things he liked about her. "Can you bring the link back?"  
"Yes, but both people have to want it and make their own side of the link. Watch..."  
  
The blue blob of Harry extended the tendrils again and plucked several times at the space between them. The piece of thread started to unravel itself and led back to the Harry-blob. "Now you try," she heard. She bent all her will to extending one small stubby tendril about two inches out.   
  
"No, don't try so hard. Just think of it as being done and it will happen," Harry said.  
  
Relaxing, Hermione imagined long yellow tendrils coming from the herself-blob, and was pleasantly surprised when there they suddenly were. So surprised, in fact, that she lost concentration completely and they winked out. Bringing them back, she plucked at the end of the thread nearer to her, drawing it clumsily inwards and sticking it to what she thought of as the head of her blob.  
  
_Worked,_ she heard Harry say.  
_Yes, it did,_ she replied, a new thought striking her. _Harry, how long have you been able to hear my thoughts?  
  
Only a few months, depending on how close you are. I'm not completely up on the theory of it, but the further away you are, the less gets through. If, say, you were knocking down a house in a fit of rage, I'd hear more than if you were picking your nose. _Harry sounded almost apologetic.  
  
_Harry Potter, have you been _spying_ on me?  
  
Not entirely...but I have heard some of your more emotional moments. I didn't want to lose the link to you, Hermione...  
  
I understand.  
  
_Hermione's brain whirled for the umpteenth time that day. She knew she should be furious at Harry, even irate. But...she just couldn't bring herself to shout at him like he deserved. He was just standing there, looking so apologetic, and--_stop it! You're sounding like Lavender or Parvati!_ she admonished herself.  
  
_They could never sound like you, though,_ a small Harry voice said to her. The "I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar" inside her dissolved like a sugar-lump, and Hermione Granger, Head Girl Emeritus of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, holder of five NEWTs, fifteen OWLs and the highest Scrabble score in the last ten years melted into the arms of the boy with a lightning scar on his forehead._  
_  
_Oh, Harry..._ she said, half wanting to gush into him and half appalled at how fluttery she was becoming.  
_I love you, Hermione,_ he said, and she felt a similar conflict inside him too. In a surge of finally-requited love, he leaned towards her and their lips touched. Then again. And again. She mentally shook herself. It was finally happening. This was _it_. The big _it._ Hermione was determined that her first time was going to be her best...and especially if it was with Harry.  
  
Thoughts, emotions, memories, pictures, feelings, ideas, passions flowed through the ever-widening link. Hermione found it extraordinarily reminiscent of that time in the Pensieve. She let her mind flow through the link into Harry's. They were linked mentally, and from there, it was obvious to them both that the physical world was an extension of that. Hermione wondered why the logic of it hadn't hit her before.  
  
Harry shrugged his cloak off and laid it down on the long grass. He took Hermione's from her shoulder and laid it beside his own. Putting an arm gently around her shoulders, he brought her down to lie beside him on top of the cloaks. She reached over and cupped his head in her hand, drawing him closer to her. The ground began to tremble.   
  
_Harry! Are you doing this?! I know the earth is supposed to move for me, but I'm getting a little concerned... _Hermione knew she sounded quite worried._  
  
Don't worry. There's nobody for forty miles around here, and I've warded us off completely,_ Harry replied reassuringly.  
  
A clod of earth roughly the same size as a juvenile hippopotamus exploded into a shower of brown dirt a few feet above them as it struck the ward, as if to reinforce Harry's thought. Hermione leaned in closer and cuddled Harry's chest into her own, fiddling one-by-one with the buttons on his shirt. _I never thought these things could be so bloody fiddly._  
  
_I apologise. Next time I'll wear a t-shirt or a roll-neck_, Harry shot back.  
  
Hermione laughed as she tenderly pulled the shirt over Harry's head to expose his ever-so-slightly hairy chest. She rubbed her hand down the middle, stopping to caress the very cute furry patch below his navel. A large rock bounced off the ward and shattered.  
  
_Don't worry, we're perfectly safe,_ Harry assured her, stroking her lower back.  
  
_I trust you, Harry,_ she said, and started fiddling with the button on his trousers as he smoothly lifted her shirt over her head. _Sodding things,_ she muttered. _Five NEWTs and still a bloody button outfoxes me.  
  
_The link pulsed with the emotional energy passing between them. It seemed stronger than ever before, and as she slipped Harry's trousers down around his ankles, she began to get a little concerned as a monolith bounced off the ward with a silent 'thud'.  
  
_It's okay, Hermione. The intensity of the link has to do with the distance between us. A very intense thought will be received no matter the distance, but it will be all the more intense the closer one is to the source. _Harry sounded reassuring and excited all at once. _There's only so much thread in the link, if you want to think of it that way. Pretend it's an elastic band. The further you stretch it, the thinner it gets, right? Well, that's how the link is. The further it stretches, the less emotion and thought can get through. And, of course, vice versa. _An enormous clod of earth crashed down and exploded above the ward._  
  
I think I see,_ Hermione thought, as the mental picture came through from Harry. She smiled down at him, clad only in rather tight blue boxer shorts, which were missing a button in a rather unfortunate place. _Well, hello,_ she said lasciviously as she tugged gently at the waistband. Harry looked down and had the grace to blush.  
  
_Little head thinking for the big one,_ she heard him think. She mentally saw an otherwise-invisible tendril of the blue Harry-blob slowly reach out and unclasp her bra, massaging her shoulders as he did so. He smiled lovingly up at her, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world. Moving on top of him, she let herself go as the earth, rocks and vegetation cascaded down upon them like a hurricane.  
  
* * *  
  
An observer standing at the tip of the island would have been astounded to see what took place that afternoon. It was as if the island was trying to recreate itself: rocks the size of buildings were flying into the air and crashing back down again, clouds of earth were being flung around, and waves the size of small towns were breaking over the entire peninsula. Well, the entire peninsula except an eight-foot sphere which contained two oblivious naked people.  
  
* * *  
  
Hermione lay ecstatically in Harry's arms, still naked, still coming down from the orgasmic high which the link had amplified beyond belief. _Harry darling?_  
_Yes?_  
_Can we do that again?  
  
_* * *_  
  
_The sun set and the moon rose high and full. Under its light, they sat on their cloaks on the peak of the pristine peninsula, arms around each other. With a twist of his mind, Harry had just repaired all the damage to their surroundings.  
_And you can just fix the island like _that? Hermione asked Harry.  
_Yes. Think of it as an undo function on a Muggle computer.  
Oh. Does it take much effort?_  
_Yes.  
_They sat silently, watching the now-calm waves lap against the rocks below.   
_You realise that this changes everything, don't you?_ Hermione said finally.  
_Yes.  
Can't you say anything but "yes"?_ she snapped.  
_Yes.  
Men!_ Hermione slapped his hand playfully. _Harry, how much of this link is because of the Pensieve?  
Hmm,_ he mused. _I'm not entirely sure. Dumbledore seemed to think that part of it was Magid-related, but the fact that it's so easy for us to form links is probably a result of the Pensieve.  
Can you remember all of it? You know, all of the stuff you saw in the Pensieve?_ Hermione asked curiously.  
_I could immediately afterwards. Then I realised that it was starting to slip away...so I got a PensaQuote Quill and wrote it all down, _Harry said. _Why, how much can you remember?  
All of it,_ Hermione said. _Remember, I'm the one with the photographic memory.  
Oh,_ said Harry in a small voice. _Oops.  
Don't worry, your secret lustings after Draco during that Hormone Moment are safe with me,_ she grinned. _As safe as my crush on Penelope is with you.  
You had a crush on Penelope?_ Harry sounded astounded. _It didn't come through the Pensieve.  
Are you sure? I was _so_ envious of Percy..._ Hermione smiled. _But don't you get jealous of me, Harry Potter, Destroyer of Rather Small Islands Off The West Coast Of Scotland.  
  
_They both laughed at that, and smiled adoringly at each other, full conversations passing between them at the speed of thought.  
_Can I keep this link, Harry?_ Hermione asked.  
_Of course you can. It's rather...comforting,_ he said._  
Not to mention easier and faster to communicate. Oh, and there's the added benefit that nobody else can hear us,_ Hermione said. She closed her eyes and examined the link between the yellow Hermione-blob and the blue Harry-blob, and spied an infinitesimally-thin orange thread leading from each of them in a southwesterly direction. _Oh, no! _she suddenly mentally gasped.  
_What?_ Harry asked, knowing the answer before it came.  
_Ron!_ they chorused.  
  
* * *  
  
Sirius and Narcissa were reading in the sitting-room when Harry and Hermione Apparated back into the hallway, covered with dirt and grass. Magda, one of the ghost maids of Malfoy Mansion, tutted at them and followed them with a dustpan and brush, muttering about "Young people today! In my day we'd have dipped them in boiling oil!"  
  
Harry popped his head around the sitting-room door and smiled at Sirius. "We're back," he said, a large clump of grass falling from his head to the floor.  
"So I see," Sirius said, a wry smile tugging at the edges of his mouth.  
Harry raised an eyebrow. "Nobody called while we were out?" he asked casually.  
"No," Sirius said, upping the ante and an eyebrow.  
"Okay. Hermione and I are going to go have a bath."  
"Together?"  
Harry's face turned redder than a Chinese Red Dragon's eyes. "Mumblewumble," he said as Narcissa peered over her book.  
"Harry, you're 18," Sirius said. "You don't need to answer to us for everything you do anymore."  
"Ungh," Harry said stupidly.  
"Oh, don't start that again," Narcissa said with a wink.  
Harry flushed even redder. "I--go--now."  
  
He turned around and, followed by the still-muttering Magda, padded upstairs, arm in arm with Hermione until they ended up entangled with a third person at the top of the stairs.  
"Enjoy your little roll in the hay?" asked Draco acerbically from under Harry's right armpit as he brushed grass off his nose.  
"Sod off, Draco," Harry muttered, attempting to disentangle himself but managing to poke himself hard in his right eye.  
"Whoever has the roving hands, I'd appreciate my left buttock back," Draco said sarcastically.  
"Sorry," Hermione said, "but you were sitting on them. The hands, I mean."  
She disentangled herself from the two men and headed for her room.  
"Really, Harry, I'm very happy for you," Draco said as soon as her door closed.  
"Must--clean--grass," Harry stuttered.  
"Good plan. If you dropped any more of it on the carpets Magda would probably beat you to death with a rotten carrot."  
Harry staggered inside the bathroom without closing the door and stared stupidly at the shower.  
"Oh, for Merlin's sake," Draco cursed from the hallway. "I should _not_ have to do this!"  
Harry stood stock-still in the bathroom as Magda muttered from outside about how she was going to have to wash the bathmat onto which he was dripping muddy grass, and how Master Lucius would have cut his tender bits off by now, or stuck a large spike or seventy-two in his nether regions. Draco sighed again and, extending his Magid-level mental tendrils, turned the shower on and lifted Harry into it, clothes and all. "Potter, you are never, _ever_, going to live this down. If you don't grovel in front of me once you're back to normal I'm going to tear up Wales in rage, you little bastard."  
  
"Draco?" Hermione called from the hallway. "Is everything all right?"  
"Yes, Hermione," Draco said exasperatedly, pushing the door to so that she couldn't see inside. "Harry's just having a Magid Moment. Happens whenever we overexert ourselves. What the fuck did you do to him this afternoon?"  
"That about sums it up," Hermione admitted through the door.  
"What do you--oh. Ohhh. Oooooohhhhhh. I see. Bugger."  
"Well, we didn't quite go _that_ far--" Hermione protested.  
"_Thank_ you, Hermione. Would you like a shovel to keep digging? Or perhaps a semi-articulated yellow excavator would be more your style," Draco's voice dripped sarcasm through the door.  
  
"Why is Harry standing in the shower in his clothes?" Hermione asked plaintively, nudging the door open and wedging her foot in the way.  
"Because he's bloody dirty and they need washing."  
"Good point."  
"Hermione, why don't you go get some sleep. I'm sure you must be absolutely knackered. Fucking knackered, indeed." Draco grinned knowingly at Hermione.  
"Draco Hephaestus St Julien Anatoliy Xavier Malfoy, I'm warning you..." Hermione shot back.  
Draco visibly staggered. "How did you know my middle names?"  
"Family tree on the second-floor landing," Hermione explained. "And don't you think that having six initials is a bit much?"  
"What's wrong with having six initials?" Draco said defensively.  
"Oh, nothing," Hermione said satisfiedly. "What's wrong with Harry, Draco?"  
  
Draco's mind shifted gear and, with a clashing grind of his mental clutch, followed Hermione's gaze to the rather sodden Harry who was still standing stupidly in the bathtub. "Oh, bollocks. He's just overstretched his Magid power. Both Dumbledore and Sirius told us that we'd have to be careful not to , especially in heightened emotion. That's how I guessed that you'd, er, been..." Draco had the grace to blush.  
"Yes, thank you, D.H.St J.A.X.M.," Hermione said primly. "Is he all right or should I go get Sirius?"  
"He'd probably say that it served Harry right and that he should sleep it off and deal with the hangover tomorrow," Draco said.  
"So it's like being drunk?" Hermione asked interestedly.  
"In that it is essentially an overdose of the power that we Magids use, rather than intoxicating liquor, yes," Draco said, prodding Harry with a mental tendril to keep him from falling over backwards.  
"Can you explain that to a non-Magid like me?" Hermione asked.  
"Did I apply for "Who Wants To Be A Magid-aire" without knowledge?" Draco asked nobody in particular. "Okay. Magids. Well, you know how you have to focus your magical energy, and how you can focus better using a wand?"  
"Yes," Hermione said.  
"Well, our power doesn't come from that source. Not our Magid power, anyway. I'm not sure exactly where mine comes from -- we'll be getting evaluations once we get to the Magid Institute in St Andrews. There are several types of Magid power, including Earth, Sea, Sky, Life and...what's the last one...oh, yes, Fire. Dumbledore is immensely strong in all but Sky, that's why he can't fly without a broomstick. Fleur Delacour, on the other hand, is stronger than even Dumbledore in Sky and Life, but can't work Fire, Sea or Earth at all. She can fly better than a bird. It's a question of being a specialist, a jack-of-all-trades...or even a master-of-all-trades. That's why Sirius and the Institute people are so excited about Harry and me -- we're looking promising to be masters-of-all-trades."  
"I see," Hermione said, not seeing particularly. She'd have to find herself a book about this, she thought to herself. "Why hasn't this been publicised to the wizarding population?"  
"For the same reason that no Muggle knows that Elvis is still a powerful wizard and that John F. Kennedy wasn't shot but was simply brought back into the wizarding world. He was the first and only experiment into Muggle government by wizards," Draco said. "It's so that normal wizards don't start getting scared by Magids."  
"Oh," said Hermione in a small voice, filing those facts away for future use.  
  
"Ungh," said Harry from the bathtub. "Sleep."  
"Good idea, Watson," Draco growled. "Hermione, would you please take his clothes off?"  
"Why me?" Hermione asked.  
"Well, you've already done it once today, so you're more practiced than I am," Draco said with a huge grin. "Honestly, I can't believe you didn't see that one coming!"  
Hermione made a disgusted sound in her throat and peeled off Harry's wet shirt, trousers and boxers, leaving them in a soggy pile at the bottom of the bathtub. She wrapped a fluffy pink towel around his waist and looked at Draco. "Feel like getting him out of there?"  
"Hmm...let me think about that," Draco said, extending his tendrils and lifting Harry out of the bath and into the hallway. They walked into Harry's room and Hermione drew back his covers. Draco slid him into bed and Hermione tucked him in. They tiptoed out and Hermione headed straight for her room. She slipped into her pajamas -- the ones with the turquoise seahorses on them -- and into bed.  
  
* * *  
  
Hermione woke late the following morning, stretching in a catlike manner and earning a rather reproving stare from a still-slumbering Crookshanks. She wrapped herself in her blue patterned dressing-gown and padded downstairs in search of good coffee. The pot in the machine was still hot, so she poured herself a mug and padded along into the sitting-room, where Sirius, Draco, Ron and Harry were having an animated discussion.  
  
"Oh, Hermione, good morning. I've been hearing that you and Harry had a very exciting day yesterday," Draco said, and Hermione knew instantly that something was up just from the glint in his eye. _Harry...what's going on?  
  
Remember the link? Ron still has it too._ Harry sounded none-too-enthusiastic about that.  
_Oh, shit. What happened?_  
"Yes, I hear they did," Ron said, looking somewhat peeved. _Did you know that the link was active?_ he asked her.  
_No! Honestly, Ron, I didn't know about it until Harry told me._ Hermione hoped she sounded sufficiently apologetic.  
_Well, it was amusing anyway,_ Ron said.  
_What was amusing?  
When you both...er...reached the peak of your little, er, climb, I was passing a large platter of brussels sprouts to my Auntie Brunhilda. The link...how shall I put this...amplified the emotions, and the sprouts ended up going for a little trip. Down Auntie B's already-plunging neckline, in fact.  
  
_Hermione laughed out loud and Draco, Harry and Sirius gave her a funny look. "Sorry," she said and turned to look at Ron. _Sorry,_ she said again.  
  
"I was just asking Harry if you wanted to go into London to buy some things," Sirius asked. "Narcissa suggested it, since you'll need some warmer clothes for St Andrews."  
"That's a smashing idea, Sirius," Hermione said hurriedly.  
"Yes," said Draco. "Ron and I were just saying that we need to go as well."  
"Oh, good," Hermione said, still not entirely awake. "I'll just go have a shower then."  
  
* * *  
  
They arrived at Diagon Alley in the Leaky Cauldron and headed, blinking, into the daylight. Settling down for an ice cream at Fortescue's, Draco broached The Big Question.  
"So, I take it that you and Harry..."  
"Yes." Hermione tried to make it sound confidently final but the slurping sound coming from Harry's toffee apple ice cream rather spoiled it.  
"And he didn't blow up half of the country?" Draco didn't sound convinced.  
"We, er, were on an uninhabited island. And he put all the megaliths and earth back together when we were done." She took a lick of her banana and melon ice cream.  
"How thoughtful," Draco said. "But that is something useful to know."  
"I'm so glad that our relationship has given you food for thought, Draco," Harry said venomously. "Remind me to put arsenic in it next time."  
"Touché," Draco replied, rising above it but dripping triple chocolate ice cream down his robes and cursing quietly.  
"Seriously," Ron said, "are you guys...together?"  
Harry smiled at Hermione and took her hand in his. "I think so. Hermione?"  
"Far be it for me to disagree with the Famous Harry Potter himself," Hermione said, squeezing Harry's hand, "but I see Sumo Gregor making a beeline for us with notebook in hand. May I suggest we adjourn to Crittik Alley? I've seen the most gorgeous dress robes for you in the Vampsace catalogue, Harry."  
"Do we have to? I much prefer Donna Charon," Harry said. "Her dress robes fit me better."  
"Donna Charon, indeed," Draco said. "Give me Kenneth Troll any day."  
  
* * *  
  
They ended up at Kenneth Troll, and Draco headed directly for the leather trousers section. Hermione emerged from the changing room and twirled, the deep crimson, full-length, strapless gown looking absolutely stunning on her. She'd let her hair down to try it on, and Harry and Ron goggled at the difference from the usual jeans-and-t-shirt Hermione.  
"Well?" she asked. "How do I look?"  
"Stunning, Hermione," Draco said, with a sidelong glance at Harry and Ron, who were still agog. "Can I steal your changing room to try on these trousers?"  
"Of course you can," Hermione said. "Now, Harry, do you think this handbag would go, or do you prefer the smaller one?"  
"Ungh," Harry said.  
"Oh, for Voldemort's sake!" Hermione fumed, drawing shocked looks from a tall young wizard from Ravenclaw she recognised from Hogwarts. She held up the two bags and tapped on the changing room door. "Draco? Which handbag?"  
"The small one," Draco replied from inside.  
"Thank you," Hermione said, and, walking outside again, passed the larger one to Harry with an ingratiating smile. Draco emerged wearing his normal trousers; the ones he had been trying on lay in a heap on the floor. Hermione entered the changing room, locked the door and slipped the ball gown off. She pulled her jeans and t-shirt back on and picked up the gown and the trousers Draco had left behind. A sudden movement in the trousers, combined with seeing a single large eye peeking through the waistband, made her shriek and drop them, yank open the door with all her force and scream as if the world were ending.  
  
Draco, Ron and Harry, who had been discussing the relative merits of Quidditch teams, scrambled into the changing rooms, while the occupants of the other rooms popped their heads over the partitions like jack-in-the-boxes.   
"_Aaaaaaaaahhhh! There's a monster in Draco's trousers!_" Hermione shrieked, wand out and at the ready. She looked from Draco to Harry to Ron, who were falling over themselves in paroxysms of laughter.  
"Monster--trousers--elf--haaaaa!" Draco spluttered while Harry cried in hilarity and Ron simply turned a rather fetching shade of magenta.  
"_Draco Hephaestus St Julien_--!" Hermione yelled, interrupted by Draco smothering her mouth with his hand.  
"Shush!" he urged. "Don't tell the _whole_ world!"  
"_Did you do that on purpose?_" Hermione hissed at him.  
"What? No, my parents gave me my middle nam--"  
"_NO! _I meant putting that...that _monster_ in those trousers!"  
"Hermione, I'm shocked," said Draco as Ron moved on from magenta, through puce and into scarlet, while Harry was still shuddering with silent laughter on the floor. "Someone with your level of education should not refer to an innocent store elf as a 'monster'."  
"St-st-_store elf?_" Hermione sounded incredulous. "They have _store elves_ in this shop? Are they like house elves?"  
"Most high-class magical vendors do," Draco explained as Ron started to return to his normal colour. "Before you ask, they're paid for their work."  
"But what do they _do_?" Hermione insisted.  
"Oh, general tasks," said Draco. "You know, like any shop assistant. Seriously, Hermione, there's nothing to get worked up about..."  
  
Hermione noticed Ron and Harry for the first time. Poking them both in the ribs with her foot, she straightened her back, extended her neck and walked stiffly to the counter to an accompaniment of applause from the clientele.  
"Will that be all, madam?" a witch who looked as if she was trying very hard not to laugh said.  
"Yes. Thank you."  
  
Hermione paid for the gown and, followed by Draco and Harry, who were supporting a still-giggling Ron, walked back out into the sunshine of Crittik Alley, stopped, muttered an incantation and Disapparated back to Malfoy Mansion.  
  
* * *  



	4. The Flying Scotsman

**Harry Potter and the Song of Time  
By Crazy Ivan**  


  
Author's Note: Our story begins in Harry & Co.'s final year at Hogwarts, and moves quickly on to the first year of post-Hogwarts life. Our heroes start at the Institute in St Andrews, Britain's finest place of higher wizarding education. Friends old and new pop up in the strangest of places, and we delve into the very meaning of Time itself!  
  
Parts of the story are loosely inspired by, extrapolated from and refer to _Draco Dormiens_ by Cassandra Claire, who has kindly given her consent to the use of Magids and 'her' Draco and his new outlook on life. It was written before the completion of _Draco Sinister_, so not all ideas in that story may be taken on board -- particularly the Heir theme. Neither is it a sequel to _DD_ or _DS. _We also go against JKR's own canon statements that there is no wizarding education past Hogwarts. Why? Because that's what fanfic is for, dammit!  
  
**Disclaimer**: I make no claims to be JKR -- or, for that matter, Cassandra Claire. Mainly because I'd look silly in a dress, but also because I respect and acknowledge their copyrighted material. Rave owns the Chimney Sweep song (I think...) and Penumbri owns Draco's Ducky Socks.  
  
All new material, however, is mine. All mine. And, to quote British Magical Rail, if you steal it, use it in any moneygrubbing gobliny sort of way, or do anything else with it that would upset my grandmother, "We Will Send Large Hairy Thugs Round To Your House To Pull Off Your Toenails".  
  
For reasons of language, this story is rated "R". Hey, eighteen-year-olds swear, drink, and have, er, relations sometimes.  
  


**Chapter Three: The Flying Scotsman  
**

  
The next few weeks passed quickly for everybody. Hermione and Ron returned home for a while, until, on the night of August 31st, they all met, with Sirius and Narcissa leading the way, at King's Cross at 11.55 pm to travel up to Scotland. Ron was last, dragging a very large trunk behind him, with Pigwidgeon chittering irritably inside his cage. They loaded their luggage onto trolleys and, checking the tickets, Sirius steered them towards Platform 6 1/2. The setup was remarkably similar to Platform 9 3/4, although the Muggle barrier looked a little different. Once through, they marvelled at the steam engine, which was a cobalt blue, perfectly complementing the spotless cream sleeper carriages.   
  
"We're in carriage..." Sirius glanced at the tickets "C."  
They maneuvered their trolleys along to carriage C, where a tall young wizard helped them carry their luggage onto the luggage racks just inside the door. Entering the compartments, everyone was stunned by the size of the beds and the compartments themselves. An Expanding Charm was obviously in effect, since each regally-appointed compartment held two king-size beds with cerulean blue bedspreads, a pair of large, blue-checked, squishy sofas, a huge partitioned bathroom with a two-person bathtub the size of Ron's father's car and was fitted in polished wood with gleaming brass fittings. Hermione whistled, never having been on a wizard sleeper before, and jumped on one of the beds as Harry walked into their compartment.  
  
"These are _fantastic_!" Hermione exclaimed. "Although, Harry darling, I don't really intend doing much sleeping tonight..."  
Harry blushed but jumped onto the bed next to Hermione. He kissed her full on the mouth, but sprang away as someone knocked loudly on the door.  
"Come in!" Harry yelled, shuffling quickly over to his own bed.  
"Wow, this is brilliant!" Ron said, entering and not noticing their rather guilty-looking, red faces. "I've never been on a sleeper before."  
"Isn't it great?" Harry enthused as Draco walked in through the open door. He, of course, cocked an eyebrow at Harry as if to say "What have you been up to?"  
"Weasley, you'd better not bloody snore or I'll tape your nostrils together," Draco growled. "Oh, and Harry, your wand's sticking out of your trousers."  
Harry hurriedly looked down in panic but relaxed when he saw that Draco was indeed correct. He pulled his wand out of his pocket and set it down on the nightstand next to his bed. Catching Hermione's eye, he grinned smuttily at her.  
"Anyway, we apparently arrive at St Andrews station at noon tomorrow," Draco was saying.  
"Thank god, that means we won't have to get up early," Harry sighed with relief. "Where does this thing stop, anyway?"  
A rather snooty-sounding magnified voice came from one of the brass wall-lamps on the far side of the room.  
"The Flying Scotsman will call at the following stations:   
Kirby Muxlow  
Scholar Green  
Midsomer Norton  
Mumby Row  
Chester-le-Street  
Chorlton-cum-Hardy  
Edinburgh Eastwestern  
Littleton Badsey   
Stornoway  
Openshaw  
Carlisle  
Long Stanton  
Formby Four Crosses  
Dunstable Town  
Fort William  
Tumby Woodside  
Glasgow  
Troublehouse Halt  
Dog Dyke  
Dundee North  
Ambergate  
Chitterling  
St Erth  
St Ives  
York Underwater  
Durham  
Portree  
Lerwick and  
St Andrews.  
  
Passengers will please keep all hands, legs, tentacles, tongues and other sensory limbs, organs or cells inside the train at all times. Mind the doors."  
  
Harry raised an eyebrow at the lamp. "Are you fully interactive?"  
"Yes, sir," the lamp sniffed.  
"Well then," Harry said, picking up his wand, "_Off_!"  
The lamp extinguished itself with a sniff, and Harry jumped back on his bed. "Pull up a sofa," he told Draco and Ron, who did just that, Draco stretching out along the length of the comfy couch.  
  
"Well, no matter where we go, there we are," Harry mused. "Do you realise it was almost exactly seven years ago that we met each other?"  
"That _is_ scary," Draco said. "I was a bit of a prick, wasn't I?"  
"Actually, you were a complete and utter prick," Ron said.  
"Ron!" Hermione scolded. "Actually, no, Draco, he's right."  
"Cheers," Draco said, rolling his eyes.  
"Won't it be nice not to live our lives in September-June instalments?" Harry said, idly leafing through his copy of the Daily Prophet.  
"Yeah," Hermione said. "That was starting to get a little irritating. It was like living in a book, for goodness' sake!"  
  
Sirius knocked, entered and perched himself on Harry's bed. "Narcissa is having a good soak before she goes to bed," he said, "so I thought I'd come and have a chat."  
The train whistled loudly and, with the tiniest of jerks, pulled out of the station.  
"You're always welcome, Sirius," Harry said with a smile.  
"I know. I thought I'd come and tell you a little more about what I'm going to be doing up in St Andrews. It's quite exciting."  
Hermione leaned forwards, hugging a pillow between her knees and her chest, and even Draco looked interested.  
"Well, the project name is _Tempus Fugit_, and it's essentially a research project into, surprisingly enough, time. Ever since Merlene MacBeth -- who, by the way, was a Magid -- managed to zap herself five years into the future during a heated argument, the Ministry of Magic has been funding this research project. Ludmilla Vachova has headed it up for the past two years, and it's widely believed that the group are about to make some breakthroughs."  
"How fascinating," Hermione said. "And what are you going to do there?"  
"I'm there as a theoretician. The previous incumbent disappeared while on a test of the setup they were using."  
"Does mother _know_ you're likely to disappear into time at any given moment?" Draco asked pointedly. "If you hurt her, I swear I'll hunt you down and feed you to a very callipygous anthropophagus."  
Sirius had the grace to look embarrassed. "Well, I've not actually told her what I'm doing exactly..."  
"Sirius!" the four students chorused.  
"That's awful!"  
"How could you!"  
"Typical man!"  
  
"But I'll tell her tonight," he promised.  
"You'd better!" Hermione looked apoplectic.  
"If you don't..." Draco threatened. "I'll blow up half of Cornwall with rage."  
"He will, you know," Harry pointed out.  
They had all become most fond of Narcissa Black, who, since her husband, Lucius, had been sent away to St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, had become a much more self-confident woman. Her own personality, previously hidden beneath her fear of her husband, had flowered, and now lay somewhere between Molly Weasley and Minerva McGonagall, with a bit of Fred and George Weasley thrown in for comic effect.  
"I will, I will," Sirius said.  
"In fact, you should go do so right now," Hermione said reprovingly.  
Sirius looked abashed and, hands out in front of him as he backed away, muttered something about going to tell Narcissa and left their compartment.  
  
Harry leaned back on the bed and conjured up a small ball of green flame, which he tossed from mental tendril to mental tendril.  
"Stressed, Harry?" Ron asked.  
"No, just bored," Harry replied, splitting the flame into three lumps and mentally juggling them.  
"Well, mind you don't scorch the bedsheets," Hermione said disapprovingly from her own bed, stroking Crookshanks, who gave Harry an almost perfect imitation of Hermione's look.  
"So, Harry," Draco said with a gleam in his eye, as if something had just occured to him, "did you find those...protections against Magid...overexcitement useful?"  
Harry rolled his eyes. "Yes, thank you, Draco. Last time I only destroyed a five hundred foot wide swath of land."  
"How useful. I'm sure that Scottish National Heritage are very grateful," Draco replied, voice dripping.  
"I'm sure," Harry said icily, and the temperature in the compartment dropped considerably.  
"Draco..." Ron warned, "now might not be the best of times..."  
"Well, we're safe tonight, at least," Draco said. "The walls are soundproof and the compartments are safely warded off, against...accidents."  
"Somebody's _really_ looking to be turned into a frog," Hermione warned in her best McGonagall YouReallyShouldn'tDoThat Voice.  
Draco smiled at her, but seemed to take her advice into consideration.  
  
"Okay, Harry, and Draco if you want," Ron said. "Explain this whole Magid thing to me in words of two syllables or fewer."  
"We are big powerfu--damn," Harry said, "Three syllables. We are big strong wizards who do not draw power from the same place as other wizards. We are much more pow--strong than other wizards. Is that a sufficient lack of syllables?"  
"Yes, thank you," Ron said sarcastically. "Now, the detailed explanation."  
"Okay," Harry said, leaning back on the bed, "here we go. Magids are potentially much more powerful than your average wizard. However, the powers we're talking about are somewhat different. We draw from up to five Elemental Powers -- Sky, Sea, Earth, Fire and Life -- and we're all skilled to different levels in each. Someone skilled in Fire, for instance, could burn anything they wanted with a touch or a shot of their Power. An Earth master could move mountains if they were strong enough. Someone with Sea could change the course of rivers, part oceans...that sort of thing. And so on. No living wizard has Master Power in all five Elements. Dumbledore has four, all but Sky. Fleur has Sky and Life. It's somewhat traditional to say that Earth and Fire are masculine, while Sea and Sky are feminine, with Life being neuter, but I've read of quite a few men with strength in Sea and women in Earth."  
  
"What are your strengths?" Ron asked.  
"We don't know. There's all sorts of tests once we get up to the Institute in St Andrews, but I have a feeling that my strongest are Earth and Sea," Harry said, catching Hermione's mental picture of the island exploding around them during sex.  
"And I reckon mine are Fire and Earth," Draco said. "Of course, these _are_ just guesses, don't forget. Educated guesses...but guesses nonetheless."  
Ron muttered something that sounded like "educated my arse", but Draco either didn't hear or pretended not to.  
  
Ron noticed Hermione smile somewhat smuttily at Harry, so he stood and nudged Draco with his heel. "Ah, I'm knackered," he said diplomatically.  
"That sounded like an 'I'm not all that knackered, but Harry and Hermione look like they're ready for a good hard shag, so I'll nudge Draco to get him to come back to our compartment' to me, Weasley," Draco said while Harry flushed bright red and Hermione looked rather satisfied.  
  
Rolling his eyes, Draco walked out after Ron, leaving Harry and Hermione gazing lovingly at each other.  
"Somehow," she said, "I feel a Bath Moment coming on."  
"Lucky that it's a two-seater, then, isn't it?" Harry murmured.  
"Very," she said, pulling her t-shirt over her head, revealing a slinky black bra. She quickly shed the rest of her clothes and, wrapping herself in one of the huge blue fluffy towels provided, turned the taps until the water was splashing merrily into the enormous tub. Harry picked up his wand and, with the help of a _hubbly-bubbly_ charm, sent multicoloured bubbles foaming into the hot water. Steam started to billow out of the bath as Harry pulled off his trousers, socks, shirt and boxers. He gingerly tested the water with his left toe, and smiled at Hermione. "Perfect."  
  
He slipped into the water, murmuring happily as the heat began to seep into his body. Hermione shed her towel and lowered herself in next to him.  
"Ahh, this is gorgeous," she said, scooping up some of the bubble foam in her right hand and plopping it on top of Harry's head.  
"Oh, so we're getting frisky now, are we?" Harry enquired mischevously.  
"That remains to be seen, Mr Potter," Hermione said, flicking a large bubble so that it popped on his nose.  
"Oh really," Harry said with one eyebrow raised, and grabbed her leg, pulling her underwater. She emerged spluttering, shaking a finger at Harry.  
"That's not on, Harry," she said, attempting in vain to smother a wide smile, and picked up a large squishy sponge. "Come here and let me scrub your back."  
"If you insist," he said, turning to sit cross-legged away from her. In a flash, Hermione had whipped a flannel across his eyes and knotted it at the back.  
"Now try that monkey-business, dearest," she said. In a flash, Harry used his Magid powers to raise Hermione four or five feet above the bathtub, and she started to drip water down onto him. He pulled the flannel blindfold off and, placing his right index finger on his chin, smiled up at her.  
"You know," Harry said, "I quite like the view from this angle."  
"Put me down _right now_, Harry Potter!" Hermione yelled.  
"Shh, you'll have everyone in here," Harry said as he pelted her with a steady stream of indigo bath foam.  
"Not fair," she said, pouting. "I can't do that to you."  
"Well, you could," Harry said, "but I'd probably manage to break a _Wingardium Leviosa_ spell quite quickly, wouldn't you think?"  
"Yes," Hermione said huffily as he lowered her back into the water on top of him.  
"Oh, hello," Hermione said as she came to rest on top of him. "What do we have down here?"  
Harry blushed. "Hermione!"  
"Well," Hermione said, "You _did_ lower me down on top of you."  
She moved her hands to his head and started to scrub his hair with vivid tangerine shampoo dispensed from a small spout in the wall.  
"Hermione, that smells ghastly!" Harry protested.  
"No it doesn't, it smells of elderflower and St John's wort," she said, sculpting his lathered hair into a mohawk and giggling.  
"What's so funny?" he asked.  
"Nothing," she said. "It's just that, if you ever do that to me again, I'll enchant your hair to stay like this."  
"Like what?"  
"You'll see if you ever do it again," she said smugly, flattening it down.  
  
* * *  
  
"Draco, what are those things on your socks?" Ron asked.  
"What do you mean?"  
"Those little yellow patterns," Ron explained.  
"Ducks," Draco said, simply.  
"_Ducks?!_" Ron exploded in laughter. "The--Magid, fearless, cold-hearted Draco--has _ducks_--on his socks! Ducky socks!"  
"Yes, and what about my ducky socks?" Draco asked glacially.  
"They're--they're--hilarious!" Ron chortled.  
"Those socks were a present from my mother."  
"Yes, I know, but--"  
"Just because your mother doesn't love you enough to give you ducky socks," Draco said with the vestiges of a grin, "doesn't mean that you have to be envious of mine."  
"If my mother gave me ducky socks I think I would scream," Ron said.  
"But not a maroon jumper," Draco counterargued.  
"Touché," Ron said.  
  
* * *  
_Hermione_, Harry thought at her as they lay in the tub, _do you remember that bit in the Pensieve with Voldemort_?  
_Yes_, Hermione replied, _It's not exactly something one tends to forget._  
_Well_, Harry said, _I've been doing a bit of reading about the phenomenon. Apparently, it's not the first time it's ever happened._  
_Yes, I know_, Hermione said. _It's all in_ Pensieves: Theory and Practice.  
_Well then, you know that the barrier between Pensieve reality and historical reality can be broken._  
_Yes_, she agreed.  
_Apparently, it's happened before. Crundlethorne the Emollient did it in 154 AD. And you know what's interesting about Crundlethorne_?  
_Apart from the fact he had three arms_?  
_He was a Magid, Hermione_, Harry said. _And I also read that it happened once during the trial of the Iron Lady for misuse of witchcraft in order to gain power in the Muggle world_.  
_Well_, Hermione said, _she was a true dark witch. One of the most powerful ever, in fact. I wouldn't be surprised if she turned out to be a Magid._  
_She was_, Harry said. _Sirius lent me this book about Magids._  
_What was it called_? Hermione asked interestedly.  
_Something along the lines of_ Magids through the Ages. _It wasn't really very good_, Harry said. _Kept talking about how bad it was to be a Magid. Published by the same goons who put out that irritating biography of me._  
_You mean_ Harry Potter: Saviour or Satan? Hermione asked.  
_Yep_.  
_Ah_.  
  
They sat in silence for a while until Harry spoke again. _Hermione...I'm thinking that I could do it again...but this time I could talk to my parents._  
_But Voldemort was the only one who spotted you_, Hermione said.  
_Yes, but he's a Magid, and I wasn't even trying_, Harry said. _If I were to really try to push through the barrier_...  
_Harry, that would be awfully dangerous_, Hermione mused. _Remember what happened to us last time_.  
_It'll probably be different with only one_, he said. T_here shouldn't be any melding of minds then_.   
_Harry, promise me you won't just go back without telling anyone_, Hermione said earnestly. _I'd have to go into a Moaning Myrtle Mood if you didn't return_.  
_I'd be fine, Hermione_, Harry said dismissively.  
_If you did, I'd pull Draco_, Hermione said, and it got the desired reaction, Harry jerking forwards and splashing water out of the bath.  
_What_? _That slimy, blond, little_--  
_Harry darling, relax. I'm not going to go out with Draco_.  
Harry relaxed and leaned back against the side of the bath. _You had me going_, he admitted, flicking some ruby foam at her.  
_I did, didn't I_? she said satisfiedly. They cuddled closer for a few minutes until Hermione spoke out loud.  
  
"You're really serious about this, aren't you?"  
"Yes, Hermione, I am," Harry said. "It means a great deal to me -- more than winning the House Cup, or the Quidditch Cup, or the Triwizard Tournament, or Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Contest."  
"You won Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Contest?" Hermione gawped, amazed.  
"No."  
"Bastard."  
"Seriously, though. I'd give anything to actually _meet_ my parents. You wouldn't understand, you've always known yours. The only time I've ever even seen mine is in photographs. Do you know how that feels?"  
"Probably not," Hermione said. "But I do know that you _mustn't_ go rushing into something like this. Talk to Sirius, or Ron, or even Draco. But talk to someone."  
"Okay," Harry said, rubbing noses with her.  
"_Promise_ me, Harry," Hermione said intensely.   
"I promise, Hermione," he said, slightly amused.  
  
She leant back. "Could you rub my neck? I've got a crick just at the shoulder..."  
He applied his fingers expertly, eliciting moans of approval and little murmurs of "higher" or "lower".  
  
As they lay next to each other later that night, Harry could just not get his eyes to stay closed for more than a minute. He slipped gingerly out of bed so as not to wake Hermione and, padding silently over to the window, sat on one of the chairs next to the small table. He pulled the curtains open ever so slightly so that a sliver of moonlight fell across his forehead, casting his scar into deep relief. He stared at the water over which the train was currently flying and guessed that, since Polaris lay almost directly in front of the train, they were somewhere between Stornoway and Littleton Badsey.  
"They do really _mean_ 'Flying Scotsman', don't they?" he observed to himself wryly. "And Arthur Weasley got in trouble for enchanting a bloody car. Humph."  
  
As he watched, a school of dolphins started to frolic alongside the train. Harry sat mesmorised as they splashed happily, following the train and turning end over end in the maritime moonlight. He smiled, really smiled, for what seemed like the first time in ages. It had, he suddenly realised, been a long time since he had inwardly smiled, and resolved to do it more often.  
  
* * *  



	5. At The Castle

**Harry Potter and the Song of Time  
By Crazy Ivan**  


  
Author's Note: Our story begins in Harry & Co.'s final year at Hogwarts, and moves quickly on to the first year of post-Hogwarts life. Our heroes start at the Institute in St Andrews, Britain's finest place of higher wizarding education. Friends old and new pop up in the strangest of places, and we delve into the very meaning of Time itself!  
  
Parts of the story are loosely inspired by, extrapolated from and refer to _Draco Dormiens_ by Cassandra Claire, who has kindly given her consent to the use of Magids and 'her' Draco and his new outlook on life. It was written before the completion of _Draco Sinister_, so not all ideas in that story may be taken on board -- particularly the Heir theme. Neither is it a sequel to _DD_ or _DS. _We also go against JKR's own canon statements that there is no wizarding education past Hogwarts. Why? Because that's what fanfic is for, dammit!  
  
**Disclaimer**: I make no claims to be JKR -- or, for that matter, Cassandra Claire. Mainly because I'd look silly in a dress, but also because I respect and acknowledge their copyrighted material. Rave owns the Chimney Sweep song (I think...) and Penumbri owns Draco's Ducky Socks.  
  
All new material, however, is mine. All mine. And, to quote British Magical Rail, if you steal it, use it in any moneygrubbing gobliny sort of way, or do anything else with it that would upset my grandmother, "We Will Send Large Hairy Thugs Round To Your House To Pull Off Your Toenails".  
  
For reasons of language, this story is rated "R". Hey, eighteen-year-olds swear, drink, and have, er, relations sometimes.  
  


**Chapter Four: At The Castle  
**

  
They alighted from the train at St Andrews Station in a howling gale. From inside the train, they had seen a gorgeous early autumn day, with the sun shining brightly down the Eden Valley and over the golf courses. The gale force wind, however, slightly lessened the attraction of the afternoon and focussed the attention towards ensuring that nobody's hat/pet/boyfriend was blown away.  
  
"A friend is picking us up," Sirius bellowed over the wind. They struggled down the platform, aided by a set of rather rickety trolleys marked in a hasty scrawl, "Property Of British Magical Rail. Not To Be Removed From St Andrews Station. Or Else We Will Send Large Hairy Thugs Round To Your House To Pull Off Your Toenails." Sirius started waving excitedly to an extremely rotund witch who was standing rather bravely in a long black academic gown which was making a rather good attempt to win its freedom. She held on to her rather crumpled pointed hat which was tied beneath her chin with a wide golden sparkly ribbon, and embraced Sirius, as far as one can embrace someone when one's own stomach gets in the way. She jabbered away, inaudible to all but Sirius, who performed an admirable charade indicating that they should all get in a shocking pink 1957 Chevrolet. As they approached the car, the witch waved a long, swishy black wand with a white tip at the back, and the cavernous boot opened with a pop. Harry, who was first in the line and grasping tenuously on to his hat, peered inside, fascinated by the contents. The boot inside had been expanded to at least the size of the entire car, and inside was a large shopping trolley happily brimming with food, from milk to a large three-tiered cake, from several types of bread to caviar. The witch, with a swish of her wand, charmed Harry's trunk into the boot and sent it far underneath the back seat. She proceeded to do the same with everyone else's luggage, mothering everyone except Sirius and Narcissa into the back seat. She slammed the boot closed with a loud _thud_ and hopped into the left-hand seat, behind the steering wheel.  
  
"Is this a _real_ '57 Chevy?" Ron asked excitedly.  
"No, it's actually a small furry wombat named Constance who enjoys knitting, travel and can say the Greek alphabet backwards," Draco said, voice dripping with sarcasm.  
"My, yall did bring a couple with you, Sirius dahling," the witch said.  
"Ron, Draco, Harry, Hermione, this is my dear friend Siriol Washington. She's from New York, and so's Big Bertha here."  
"Explains a lot," Draco muttered, batting away a large stuffed animal wearing a "My Sister-In-Law's Former Flatmate Went To Hogsmeade And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt So I Turned Her Into A Window Ornament" t-shirt which was stuck to the window with small plastic suction cups and currently trying to invade his personal space.  
"Big Bertha?" Hermione sounded confused.  
"The car, honey," Siriol said, grinning widely. "You would not _believe_ the forms I had to fill out to bring her to Eng-a-land. It is _so_ Muggle here."  
  
She tapped the radio with her wand and shifted the car into gear as "_No Particular Place To Go_" blasted into the air. Humming along, Siriol maneuvered Big Bertha out of the station and onto the main road, which was barely wide enough for the car. As it was, Ron hurriedly raised his window as he received a mouthful of roadside gorse bush. With pedestrians and other motorists swerving out of their way, Siriol and Big Bertha purred through the "Royal Burgh Of St Andrews" which, a sign said, welcomed you, continuing up the road and turning left at a rather nice-looking restaurant. She took the next right and the car purred along the tree-lined seafront street which Harry noticed was named "The Scores".  
  
They pulled in and got out in front of a large, imposing building of several floors and obvious antiquity. Turrets, balconies and battlements sprouted in unusual places (like, for instance, the front doorway), and several chimneys pointed out rather like cannon. The windows and flowered windowboxes appeared to be stuck on apparently at random and at oblique angles, and one even poked through a large box hedge growing at either side of the front door. From the gabled top of the house emerged a tall white tower rather reminiscent of a Muslim minaret, with the British Union flag flapping excitedly in the gale-force wind.  
  
With a quick glance around the empty street, Siriol waved her wand at the shopping trolley, her large golfing umbrella, a set of golf clubs, a pair of wellington boots, an enormous tartan umbrella and a tent-like wax jacket, sending them all wobbling merrily towards the front door. Motioning the others to follow, she walked inside, exhorting them to mind one of the paving stones, since it hadn't been fed recently and was likely to be peckish.  
  
As they entered, trunks floating along in front, Harry was struck by the eccentricity of the house. A winding, rickety staircase led up and to the right, while a grand marble affair in the next hallway led expansively to the second floor. To the left, a long unlit passageway was lined with small tables covered with assorted items of Siriol's personal belongings, while the walls were festooned with pictures, some tasteful, some not, and some tasteless enough to make even a Northern Pictish Hag wince. Siriol, dropping the umbrella into a stand reminiscent of a flatulent giraffe, smiled and clasped her hands around her middle.  
  
"Welcome to The Castle," she said, smiling. "Sirius told me that yall would be coming up here to stay, and fortunately enough last year's tenants have graduated. There are a few house rules, but those can wait until yall have settled into your rooms. Now, who's Ron?"  
Ron nodded at Siriol. "Me."  
"Hello, Ron. Your room is the Blue Room, first door to the right on the first floor, up this staircase. And who's Draco?"  
"That would be me," Draco said, cocking his head to one side, trying to decide what to make of this woman.  
"Oh, the boy with the acid tongue. Alastor Moody has told me _so_ much about you. Isn't Al a _dear_?"  
Draco said something that sounded rather like "mumblewumble", so Siriol continued. "You are in The Ship, which is two doors along from Ron's, on the other side of the bathroom. The door is a little bit stiff, so you might have to shoulder into it." Siriol made an appropriate imitation with her own shoulder, narrowly missing a tall pile of parcels set on a table to her right. "That leaves Harry as the only boy," she deduced, smiling at him. "You're in the Tower, which is the room to the left at the top of the staircase which leads off this one," and she pointed to the rather old, worn-looking one which gave the impression that it might decide to fall down one of these days.  
  
"And you must be Hermione," Siriol said, looking at the only girl in the group. "You're downstairs and to the left, in Lilac. Don't worry, honey, it's not the basement -- oh, what's the word for that over here?"  
"Cellar," Narcissa added helpfully.  
"Thank you, pumpkin. Yes, it's not the cellar. Both of the downstairs rooms have their own balcony overlooking the sea, and the windows are just lovely in the morning."  
Hermione looked around for the stairs which would lead to her room, and Siriol tutted at herself forgetfully.  
"Oh, I'm sorry honey, the stairs downstairs are through there." She indicated a huge oak door studded with iron. "The door's a bit heavy but it does keep the draughts out."  
"I see," Hermione said quietly.  
"And Sirius and Narcissa, you're both on the top floor, in the Penthouse Suite, as I like to call it. Now, you must all be pooped from your journey. I do so dislike travelling by train, it's very cramped, wouldn't you say?"  
Nobody else really thought so, although they all nodded and made agreeing noises.  
"Well, off you go. If you get lost, just yell and somebody will be along in a few minutes. Oh, and boys upstairs, don't worry if you hear some bumps or clanking. It'll either be the plumbing or the poltergeist. I'm sure you'll meet him eventually. His name is...well, it's unpronounceable in English, so just call him Ek."  
  
She bustled off with Sirius and Narcissa up the grand marble staircase, leaving the four others in the hallway. With a shrug to the others, Harry, wand out and ready, maneuvered his trunk up the rickety stairway, trying very hard to avoid the pot plants, bookshelves, tables, chests of drawers, ornamental protuberances and sleeping cats which attempted to block his way. He smiled at Draco and Ron as they turned off on the first floor, walked across the landing and through a door marked "To The Tower". The stairway became even narrower here, and Harry eventually resorted to turning his trunk on end to get it up the stairs.  
  
Turning left as he squeezed onto the second floor landing, he twisted the doorknob into "The Tower Room" without really noticing it.  
"Och!" a deep, muffled voice came from beneath his hand, causing him to withdraw it sharply. "Gerrof, ye wee Southern git!"  
"Sorry," Harry said, staring at the wooden doorknob which had nipped his finger. "I didn't notice you there."  
"He didnae notice me there," the doorknob mimicked. "Didnae notice me, I'll nae say! How could ye nae notice a talkin' doorknob?"  
"I was a little preoccupied with my trunk," Harry said, wondering if anything else was going to jump out and try to snack on him.  
  
"Oh, Hamish, leave the poor boy alone," another, more muffled voice came. "He's obviously just moved in, and you _know_ how bad Siriol is about telling people things they need to know." The owner of the voice was gradually revealed to be a tall poltergeist, who floated through the wall opposite Harry's room. "You must be Harry Potter with that scar," the ghost said. "I am Lupanaliolirttanfoasdthoealghzu-mankkyuvamarquiyek. You may, if you like, call me Ek."  
"That would probably be easier," Harry said, scratching his head. "Er, Hamish, was it?"  
"Tha's right," the doorknob said gruffly.  
"Could I please get into my room now?"  
"Well, since ye asked nicely, I suppose so."  
  
The door swung open to reveal a palatially-decorated suite of rooms. Harry nudged his trunk to one side of the door (next to an antique writing desk) and stepped further into what looked like a sitting-room. The walls were covered in a deep burgundy wallpaper, with a golden border showing leaping Leos, shooting Sagittarii, swimming Pisces, scuttling Cancers, and all the other signs of the Zodiac. The curvy sofa and armchairs were set around a low coffee-table in front of a crackling fire, and a long, wide desk stood in front of a leather office chair on the other side of the room. One entire wall was taken up with one large bookshelf, half already used for such tomes as _A Magical History Of Scotland_ by Mhairi Hamilton, _Haggis: Fowl or Foul_ by the Scottish Culinary Institute, and _The Magician's Guide to St Andrews and its Environs_, from the St Andrews Magical Institute Welcome Office. A table underneath a painting of the Cuillins mountain range on Skye held an old gramophone and special compartments under its surface contained a wide selection of vinyl records. Harry walked over, selected an old Edith Piaf LP and set it to play. The rich, deep sound of the French songstress' voice filled the room, making Harry smile deeply for the second time in as many days.  
  
He walked over and opened a vast wardrobe which led into a closet larger than the dormitory he'd shared at Hogwarts. Closing that door, he looked into his private bathroom, with a bath only slightly smaller than that on the Flying Scotsman, with a man-sized towel rail covered with fluffy burgundy towels. The sink was huge too, with a wall cabinet the size of Harry's old bookshelf at the Dursleys'.  
  
He walked through the door at the other end of the bathroom into his bedroom, goggling at the rich variety of reds presented to him -- from the regal burgundy on the wallpaper, bedspread and curtains, to the passionate crimson of the two armchairs, to the vermillion paint on the bedside table. The accents in this room were also gold, but more sparingly than in the sitting-room. Harry opened the curtains to reveal St Andrews Bay glittering in the blustery autumn sunshine. Several yachts and other sailing vessels scudded across the bay with the wind, and the cast-iron table and chairs on the balcony outside the window would have looked very inviting had they not had leaves flying past at suicidal speeds.   
  
The second door led back into the enormous wardrobe, and Harry walked through the third door in his bedroom to find himself back in the sitting-room, and began to unpack his trunk.  
  
He spent a very pleasant half-hour listening to Edith Piaf and arranging the things he'd brought to make the room look more 'his'. He'd only brought a few robes, which he hung in the closet next to his only Muggle suit. The books he'd decided to take with him from Hogwarts he arranged alphabetically on the bookshelf, not even filling one of the ten empty shelves.  
  
He was brought back to reality by a tapping on the door. "Come in," he called, turning quickly and striding towards the door so that his robes swirled behind him. Hermione entered, backing nervously away from Hamish the doorknob as she did so.  
"Hamish, it's okay, Hermione can come in here whenever she likes," Harry said in some irritation.  
"Well, why didnae ye say so?" the irritated doorknob replied.  
"Thank you, Hamish," Harry said, closing the door firmly but making sure he pushed the door itself closed.  
"Wow..." was all Hermione could say as she took in the grandeur of Harry's room. "It's very..."  
"Red?" Harry asked, smiling and putting an arm around Hermione's shoulders.  
"Red would work. Vermilion, crimson, scarlet, fuchsia, realgar, minium--"  
"Yes, thank you, Hermione," Harry said amusedly, kissing her cheek. "Come look at the wardrobe...and the bedroom," he continued, leaving the last word dangling freely in the air.  
  
Hermione walked through the cavernous wardrobe into the bedroom and flew to the window. "What a _gorgeous_ view, Harry," she said, drinking it in as if it were ambrosia. "I thought mine was wonderful, but this...this just takes the biscuit."  
Hardly noticing the more-than-king-size bed, she walked back through the bathroom into the sitting room and headed for the bookshelves. "Mine's rather purple," she said absently, blowing the dust off _A Scottish Ministry Of Magic: Why It's A Bad Thing_ by M. Thatcher and leafing through the pages.  
"Ooh, nice," Harry said, flipping Edith Piaf over onto the other side. _Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien_ started to play and Harry, gently but firmly placing the book Hermione had now picked up (_The Not Particularly Rough Guide To Scotland_ by Timide LeSouris) on a table and starting to dance. The slow, rhythmical beat amplified their movements as they stepped around the sofa and into the centre of the room. They danced together through that song and others, until another knock and a pained yelp drew their attention to the door.  
  
"What the hell?" Ron was yelling from the other side of the door. "Harry? Are you there? Your bloody doorknob just _bit_****me!"  
Harry pulled the door open to find Ron holding his hand and glaring at Hamish the doorknob.  
"Ye Southerners dinnae taste as good as real Scots," Hamish observed.  
"Sorry about the doorknob, Ron," Harry said. "He's obviously not a very well-bred knob."  
"I'll give ye well-bred," Hamish muttered as Harry slammed the door crossly.  
"Not bad..." Ron said as he appraised Harry's rooms. "You've got the bloody suite, Harry!" he said as he walked into the bedroom. "Nice view, too."  
"What's yours like?" Hermione asked absently.  
"Oh, hi, Hermione," Ron said, only then noticing her sitting in a chair with her nose in _Pictish Incantations, Spells and Hexes_. "It's very blue. I'd even say it was almost entirely blue, apart from a few silver touches here and there."  
"Uh-huh," she said non-committantly, having turned to _Scots: Warrior Chieftains or Big Pansies?._  
  
"Oh," said Ron, suddenly remembering he'd been sent up to Harry with a message. "Siriol says that we're all to meet in the downstairs drawing room at one."  
Harry flicked a look at the carriage clock on the mantelpiece, which was showing five to one. "Right then, off we go," he said, nudging Hermione. "Earth to Hermione, the library is closed for the moment, please come back later."  
"Sorry," she said, placing all the books back on the shelf and following them out of the Tower, down both flights of stairs and into the front hall. A signpost which would not have looked out of place at a rural crossroads pointed them down the unlit corridor towards _Drawing Room, 25'_ . With a shrug, Harry led off, narrowly escaping an attack by a disturbed and playful kitten which was hiding in a disused walking boot. They poked their heads into several doors, including one on the right which turned out to be the kitchen, attended by several house-elves currently cooking up a storm, eventually discovering that the drawing room was the third door on the left.  
  
The cosy room was eclectic in its furnishings to say the least. A bright pink, wavy 1960s sofa was occupied by Sirius and Narcissa, who were both reading the _Daily Prophet_'s Scottish Edition. Draco was perching on the arm of a navy blue, rather cubical armchair, doing the crossword from the _Saturday Prophet_'s magazine, and Siriol was reading a battered copy of _The Duchess of Malfi_ on a red and white striped chaise longue. Harry chose a lime green pouffe in front of the fire, Hermione a bright yellow transparent inflatable chair next to Sirius and Narcissa, and Ron sat down in an ornate tartan-covered chair with carved armrests and headrest, picked up _The Fife and Grampian Magical News_ and began to read the headlines. Harry smiled and thought how incomplete Hermione looked without a book in her hands.  
  
An enormous cuckoo clock above the fireplace clanked into action, with a large, moulting yellow bird on the end of an extendible platform squawking once before retreating back inside. Harry looked up as the door opened to admit a witch about the same age as himself, dressed in a pair of jeans and a baggy wool jumper. The most noticeable thing about her, however, was the long, vivid yellow hair which hung down in long braids to her waist.  
"Aren't you going to introduce me, Siriol?" she asked.  
"Sure, hon. Xanthe Montrose, this is Sirius and Narcissa Black, Hermione Granger, Ronald Weasley, Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter," Siriol said, folding over a page of the play she was reading and smiling up at her.  
"Hermione and I have already met," Xanthe said in a broad Glaswegian accent, smiling at Hermione. "Her room is next door to mine."  
"Of course, how silly of me," Siriol said, tutting at her own forgetfulness.  
Xanthe plopped down on the huge tangerine orange cushion next to Harry's pouffe and smiled at him. "So, you're the Famous Harry Potter," she said bluntly.  
"Last time I checked," Harry replied with a smile, turning to face her and to let the fire warm the other side of his body.  
"Huh," she remarked, sounding unimpressed. "Well, don't think that'll count for all that much here in St Andrews."  
"I wasn't intending it to," Harry said, somewhat defensively. "I tend not to go around with a retinue of adoring fans, signing autographs and photos of myself."  
"Good," she said, fiddling with the end of one of her braids.  
"So, where did you go to school?" Harry asked. "I don't remember you from Hogwarts."  
  
"Beauxbatons," Xanthe replied. "Mes parents ont decidé qu'il me fasse apprendre le français, et donc j'suis allée à Beauxbatons."  
"Erm, yeah," Harry said, having elected to take Music instead of French at prep school. "Je parle bien la français, moi."  
Xanthe threw her head back and laughed. "Excellente, pour sure," she said in franglais.  
"When did you arrive?" Harry asked.  
"Yesterday," Xanthe replied. "Did you take the Flying Scotsman up from King's Cross?"  
"Yeah," Harry said enthusiastically. "It's fantastic!"  
"Well, since I only had to come from Glasgow, it seemed a bit silly," Xanthe said. "I just Apparated over."  
  
The door opened again and the tall wizard named after a part of London whose name Harry could never remember walked in, dressed in orange corduroys and a pink double-cuffed dress shirt under a bright red jumper with large silver cufflinks.   
"Oh, hello," he said in recognition of the other four Hogwarts students. "Fancy seeing you here!"  
"Hello, Kensington," Hermione said warmly. "I didn't know you'd decided to come up to St Andrews."  
"Well, I did better on my Astronomology and Arithmancy NEWTs than I'd been predicted, so I got in at the last minute, since someone hadn't made their grades," he said, sitting down on a revolting revolving puce chair from the Fifties.  
"What else did you take?" Ron asked.  
"Divination," Kensington said, rolling his eyes. "I should have predicted that it was a complete load of bull, if you'll pardon my French."  
Hermione visibly warmed to him, her own views on the relative merits (or lack thereof) of a certain subject beginning with D being well known.  
"I've been up here for a week," he said, "and I've decided that St Andrews is one of the most wonderful places in Britain. You should just see it when the wind dies down."  
  
Siriol cleared her throat and everyone turned towards her. "Okay, are we sitting comfortably?" Several people chuckled and Siriol continued. "Then I'll begin. Welcome to The Castle. As you know, I'm Siriol Washington and I've owned The Castle for fifteen years or so now. It was originally built for a wealthy Victorian countryman, but has been added onto by a series of subsequent owners. There's a book here that describes the place's history and former residents." She pointed to a thick book entitled _My Home is The Castle_, and Hermione's eyes lit up excitedly. "For the next nine months -- or more if you like -- it's also your home, but for the sake of everyone's sanity, there are a few house rules that I'd like to establish now to avoid tears, blood and intestines later.  
  
"Firstly, please don't redecorate your rooms without asking first. Ek tends to be very possessive about this sort of thing, and finding horses' heads on one's pillow tends to cause offense. Secondly, loud music playing without the use of a Silencing Charm is verboten. Most of the rooms do have the charms already performed, but please just make sure. The kitchen is for everybody's use, so do please keep it tidy. For those of you with consciences, The Castle's house-elves are all paid workers who get paid vacations, sick leave and 401k pension plans."  
"ISA plans, you mean," Sirius interjected.  
"Yes, sorry, cross-cultural moment. ISA plans," Siriol said. "The fridge is kept well-stocked, but if you do use the last bit of something, it is greatly appreciated if you write it down on the shopping list which hangs from the small Statue of Liberty magnet on the fridge. Hmm...what's next...oh, yes. Apparation inside the house is strictly an ixnay. There are all sorts of charms lying around which could cause serious injury."  
  
"Why would they cause Sirius injury?" Narcissa asked worriedly.  
"Sorry, hon, I meant see-ree-us injury," Siriol explained.  
"Oh, I see," Narcissa blushed.  
"Also frowned upon is trying to charm, hex, enchant or otherwise magically affect the 'special' parts of the house. There are several Diabolical Doorknobs, Charmed Chandeliers and other such interesting features who are not to be adjusted."  
Harry gulped as he hurriedly revised his plan for dealing with Hamish the doorknob's personality, which had involved some Muzzling Magic.  
  
"Each room comes with its own cat. I noticed that Hermione has her own. Will he get on with the others?" Siriol asked.  
"Yes, he's usually very well behaved unless another creature is a Dark Wizard in Animagus form," Hermione said with a knowing glance at Ron.  
"Excellent. I'm sure he (is he a he, honey?) will get on just fine. There is no curfew, but I cannot guarantee that the front doors will let you in after three a.m. They're a little tempramental, being several hundred years old, and need their beauty sleep. If you encounter difficulty, please ring the doorbell and someone might let you in. Finally, I live in the Ivory Minaret at the very top of The Castle. I'm fond of privacy, so if you need me urgently please ask the knocker on the Ivory Minaret door to pass me a message. Does anyone have any questions?"  
  
Everyone looked at one another, but nobody spoke up. "Oh," Siriol said, "I almost forgot. The house-elves can serve breakfast from 8 to 11, lunch from 12 to 3, and supper from 6 to 9. A menu is usually tacked up on the door into the kitchen, and the elves are very glad for any suggestions you might have. You may, of course, fix yourselves snacks and your own meals at any time."  
  
A house elf poked his head around the door, recoiling slightly as he saw so many people. "Luncheon is served on the kitchen table," he said in a small voice.  
"Thank you, Noddy," Siriol said, heaving herself out of the chaise longue. "Let's not let lunch get cold, folks." She squeezed down the narrow passageway into the kitchen, followed by the others.  
  
The kitchen was very cosy indeed. A small flock of cats, one suckling a litter of kittens, lay sleepily in front of the large wood-burning Aga stove, some cleaning themselves and others snoozing happily. Around the Aga were hanging an eclectic set of kitchen implements, from chargrilling pans to tongs to potato mashers. A large marble preparation surface was at the end of the kitchen closer to the Aga, surrounded by many mismatched kitchen cabinets and a sink half the size of a bathtub. A large bay window behind the sink contained a dozen terracotta pots with every herb from basil to thyme, chives to mint, oregano to rosemary. At the other end of the kitchen was laid a great round wooden table which looked like it could easily seat twenty people, looking very well-loved and surrounded in a semi-circle by a picture window overlooking the sea, whitecaps and all.  
  
On it was laid out a scrumptious feast: sandwiches of every type imaginable, wraps, quiche, sausage rolls, pork pies, salad, eggs, coleslaw, penne tossed with pesto and roast peppers, and two large platters of meats and cheeses from all over the world. Harry couldn't even name half of them, but he did notice mozzarella di bufala, Port Salut, Gruyere, Boursin, Swiss and even yellow American, the sort that he called plastic cheese. A bread basket fairly bulged with dozens of rolls of different varieties, and everyone sat down around the table, marvelling at the panorama which spread out behind them. The conversation turned to everyone's rooms, Harry warning everyone about Hamish the doorknob with Ron backing him up melodramatically.  
  
"Siriol, is there a history to my room?" Draco asked.  
"You're in The Ship, aren't you? Well, the wooden walls are original hull timbers from H.M.S. Sutherland. Her skipper lived here in his retirement, and refurbished the room. That was in the mid-1800s, if I remember correctly."  
"Is there a story behind the bed? Is it an original?"  
"Actually, no, there's not. It's based on an old Captain's Bed, with the drawers underneath, but the bed on which it's based was narrower than a single, and under six feet long. The skipper decided that he'd make a few adjustments, since space isn't an issue here. The desk chair, however, is an original that he himself made. I'm very fond of the balcony and windows -- they too were actually taken from the Sutherland when she was decommissioned." Siriol picked up a roll and stuffed it with cheese and Branston sandwich pickle.  
  
"And is there an interesting history behind The Gallery?" Kensington, taking a prawn sandwich, asked.  
"The actual room is only a few years old. The furniture is deliberately low-key so as not to draw attention from the artwork hanging on the walls. They're not all originals, but it's my contribution to the house."  
"It's very eclectic. Not that that's surprising, but I've noticed some Turners, quite a bit of Mondrian, a bit of van Gogh, and some rather gorgeous landscapes. Oh, and the Picassos," Kensington said, fiddling with his cufflinks.  
"The Picassos are actually originals," Siriol said. "I was given them by a very dear friend who actually knew the man."  
"How intriguing! And the balcony is just smashing," Kensington said.  
"Thank you. I had it specially wrought and then painted to reflect my passion for the Mondrian style," Siriol explained between mouthfuls of haggis sandwich.  
  
"Siriol, did you know that blue is my favorite colour?" Ron asked, munching into a sausage roll.  
"A little dog told me," Siriol said, winking at Sirius. "He also said that it would match the orange of your Quidditch things. Although, honey, please don't pin them on the walls. Ek gets terribly upset." She reached for a bacon sandwich and bit off half in one fell swoop.  
"Who designed the girls rooms downstairs?" Xanthe asked.  
"Mmmph-hmph," Siriol said, motioning for them to give her a second to finish chewing the sandwich. "Pardon me. Well, it was a pair of twins, Kira and Tira, who moved in late in the Fifties. Kira's was Lilac and Tira's was Daffodil, and now Hermione and you have them. They're almost identical, apart from the colours and the placement of the doors." Siriol munched away at a Cornish pasty before turning to Harry.  
"And how are you liking the Tower?" she asked him, a crumb wedging itself firmly into the corner of her mouth.  
"It's brilliant," Harry enthused. "The colour is just so rich...and the view is simply amazing. The only downside is the doorknob."  
"Oh, dear Hamish," said Siriol with a knowing grin. "Somehow I just can't find it in my heart to pull his knob off."  
"My knob is very cool," Ron said. "He's very knowledgeable about the house."  
"Yes, probably because a prior resident of that room wrote the book that I pointed out to you earlier," Siriol agreed.  
  
"I'm quite fond of my sink," Hermione said. "She's a real sweety, and is full of useful information like how to make your own soap."  
"Wouldn't that smell really nasty?" Draco asked.  
"Probably," Hermione said, nibbling on a piece of carrot.  
"Registration for everyone's courses, by the way," Kensington said, taking a gulp of tea, "is on Monday. It involves a lot of standing around and waiting for people to decide that they're going to be bothered to sort out your details, and I've been reliably informed that one in three people has to be re-registered, because in St Andrews the left hand doesn't know that the right hand exists, let alone what it's doing."  
"What are you studying up here, Kensington?" Hermione asked.  
"Well, I'm thinking of Astronomology with Arithmancy, since I did quite well on my NEWTs. Perhaps some Psychohistory as well, but definitely nothing to do with the D-word."  
"Glad to hear it," Hermione muttered into her cup of coffee. "I'm quite looking forward to getting into the BWL."  
"BWL?" Xanthe looked confused.   
"British Wizarding Library," Hermione explained. "I've got a research job involving my Master of Wizardry in Arithmancy there."  
"Oh, I see," Xanthe said. "I'm looking forward to starting International Wizarding Relations. From the course catalogue, it looks fascinating."  
  
They chatted for a while, leaving very little of the smorgasbord on the table, eventually decamping to the drawing room and playing a very enjoyable mass game of wizard Scrabble, which was just like the Muggle game apart from the fact that, every so often, the letters changed just as you were about to put down a high-scoring word involving the Q, Z, K and X. Hermione was about to score over a hundred points by blatantly putting "syzygy" (the configuration of the sun, the moon, and Earth lying in a straight line) with the S perpendicular to the end of "zoroastrian", gaining a triple word score and two double letter scores despite using two blanks, when her letters turned into three Is, three Us and an A. She eventually resorted to putting an A down to make "ax" on a triple word score for twenty-seven points.  
  
As it ended up, Siriol had 346 points, Hermione 344, and everyone else under 100. Ron suggested that they change game to something like Trivial Pursuit, but nobody felt like losing to Siriol or Hermione again. Harry decided that he would quite like to write a few letters to Albus Dumbledore so, followed by Hermione who wanted to get back to _Scots: Warrior Chieftains or Big Pansies?_. They climbed up to The Tower, narrowly avoiding a friendly nibble from Hamish the doorknob. Hermione plopped herself down into an armchair while Harry opened the writing desk, withdrew a sheet of writing paper, a quill and an inkwell. Biting the end of the quill, he dipped it into the inkwell and began to write in his loopy script.  
  
"Dear Albus," the letter began. "I have just arrived in St Andrews and have moved in to The Castle, which is where Hermione, Ron, Draco and I will be living for the next year. The view is absolutely fabulous, and I'm very tempted to take up sailing. It's quite an eccentric house, but I feel rather taken by it already. You really must come visit one weekend -- there are several guest rooms which you could use. Draco and I are looking forward to starting classes on Tuesday, and I promise not to blow up eastern Fife in the first week. Hermione sends much love.   
  
Warmly,  
  
Harry."  
  
Folding the letter, Harry slid it into an envelope, addressed it and called to Hedwig, who had been sitting on her perch in the corner, keeping warm near the fire. Harry opened a window with difficulty and Hedwig disappeared quickly in the wind as Harry struggled to close it again.  
  
"Harry..." Hermione said amusedly, "why do you have a copy of the _Kama Sutra _on your bookshelves?"  
"Do I?" Harry asked innocently, walking over.  
"Yes. And don't think to say it's not yours because it was lodged between _Quidditch Through The Ages_ and _Marvellous Magids_," she said, putting an arm around his waist and drawing him closer to her. "This _does_ look like an interesting read, dearest."  
"I should say it does," Harry agreed, opening the book randomly. "Hmm..._The Lotus Flower._ I didn't know you could _do_ that with human legs." He turned the page. "_The Large Dragon Breathes Fire At The Fluttering Butterfly_. Oh dear. That looks excruciatingly painful."  
"Mmm," Hermione agreed, turning to _The Elephant And The Horse_. "I don't think I bend that way."  
"Perhaps we should take up yoga," Harry suggested, holding his fingers together at arms length and lifting one leg. "Otherwise there's no way we could do that one, what is it? Ah, _The Swooping Crane_. Hermione, something tells me that we should read _Delia's Guide to the Basics_ before we get onto _Cordon Bleu Haute Cuisine_."  
"Hmm. Do you have that on your shelf as well?"  
"'Fraid not, but we could always go into Edinburgh and pick it up," Harry suggested.  
"We could," Hermione said, "but we could always have a look in the pantry and throw something together."  
"Yes, I always enjoy improvising in the bed--er--kitchen," Harry agreed, running a finger down the centre of Hermione's nose.  
"Well, maitre d', why don't you choose something for the menu for this afternoon?" Hermione suggested suggestively, kissing Harry's scar.  
"Certainly, my little profiterole," Harry murmured lasciviously into her ear. "Would you like to come to Narnia with me, my darling witch?"  
"Narnia?" Hermione asked.  
"Yes, a magic land of happiness, adoration and love, reached through a large wardrobe at the top of the house," Harry said, steering Hermione through his wardrobe and into the bedroom.  
  
* * *  



	6. Se Rencontrer

**Harry Potter and the Song of Time  
By Crazy Ivan**  


  
Author's Note: Our story begins in Harry & Co.'s final year at Hogwarts, and moves quickly on to the first year of post-Hogwarts life. Our heroes start at the Institute in St Andrews, Britain's finest place of higher wizarding education. Friends old and new pop up in the strangest of places, and we delve into the very meaning of Time itself!  
  
Parts of the story are loosely inspired by, extrapolated from and refer to _Draco Dormiens_ by Cassandra Claire, who has kindly given her consent to the use of Magids and 'her' Draco and his new outlook on life. It was written before the completion of _Draco Sinister_, so not all ideas in that story may be taken on board -- particularly the Heir theme. Neither is it a sequel to _DD_ or _DS. _We also go against JKR's own canon statements that there is no wizarding education past Hogwarts. Why? Because that's what fanfic is for, dammit!  
  
**Disclaimer**: I make no claims to be JKR -- or, for that matter, Cassandra Claire. Mainly because I'd look silly in a dress, but also because I respect and acknowledge their copyrighted material. Rave owns the Chimney Sweep song (I think...) and Penumbri owns Draco's Ducky Socks.  
  
All new material, however, is mine. All mine. And, to quote British Magical Rail, if you steal it, use it in any moneygrubbing gobliny sort of way, or do anything else with it that would upset my grandmother, "We Will Send Large Hairy Thugs Round To Your House To Pull Off Your Toenails".  
  
For reasons of language, this story is rated "R". Hey, eighteen-year-olds swear, drink, and have, er, relations sometimes.  
  


**Chapter Five: Se Rencontrer**  


  
Harry awoke late the following morning and, after a quick shower, made his way downstairs to the kitchen, where Siriol and Draco were competing to see who could finish the _Daily Prophet_'s crossword first.  
"Harry," Draco asked, "a four-letter word meaning fog or frost, beginning with H?"  
"Hoar," Harry said groggily, reaching for the pot of coffee sitting on the round table.  
"No, Harry, four letters and beginning with H."  
"Not whore, hoar. H-O-A-R. It's a type of frost."  
"He's right," Siriol said knowledgeably. "We get them in St A's every so often, especially after a haar."  
"A what?" Draco sounded skeptical.  
"Haar. H-A-A-R, a type of fog. It's like walking about in pea soup -- eerily quiet, like after a heavy snowfall. All the car headlights loom out of the greyness like lighthouse beams."  
"H-O-A-R," Draco repeated, filling it into the grid.  
"Okay, here's another one for you, Harry honey," Siriol said. "Three letters, and 'the sound made by a cow'. Third letter is W. I thought it was 'moo', but..." she trailed off.  
"Low," Harry said, stirring three sugars into his coffee and picking up a pain au chocolat from the tray.  
"Low?"  
"Yes. Gray wrote about it, the lowing herd wends somethingly round the lea, to paraphrase."  
"Low..." Siriol sounded amused. "Like a cow sounds like that."  
  
Harry let the jibe slide and munched on his pain au chocolat, dipping it into the coffee. For the first time, he looked out the window and saw that the rain was coming down horizontally, the whitecaps on the grey sea crashing dramatically onto the beach. "Looks like an inside day today," Draco said, following Harry's gaze.  
"Mmm-hmm," Harry said, sipping at his coffee.  
With a triumphant "Yes!" Siriol slapped her crossword down onto the table. "Finished!"  
"Damn," Draco said, peering over and looking at clue 14 Down. "Oh, that heraldic question was 'purpure'. Bollocks."  
"Well, you'll never forget that word again, will you," Harry observed.  
"Yes, thank you, Potter," Draco said, notably irritated.  
Harry smiled at Siriol, who winked back. "Same time tomorrow?" she asked Draco.  
"Certainly," he replied with a gleam in his eye.  
  
Harry leaned back on his chair and folded his arms behind his head.  
"Anyone seen Hermione this morning?" he asked.  
"Mmm, she went out with Narcissa to get a few things. I think she forgot to bring a hat and coat with her. You'd think that yall didn't go to school only fifty miles from here."  
"Well, you don't tend to leave the Hogwarts Castle unless you're flying or going to Care of Magical Creatures or Herbology," Harry countered defensively.  
"I guess not," Siriol said, shrugging her shoulders and standing. "Well, I simply must go write to one of my colleagues back across the pond. He's come out with some wacky theory about temporal mechanics that simply won't wash."  
"You're in temporal mechanics too?" Harry asked. "Isn't that what Sirius is doing up here?"  
"Yeah," Siriol said. "Actually, I asked the Vach for him in particular."  
"Vach?" Draco wondered.  
"Sorry. Ludmilla Vladimirovna Vachova. We call her the Vach because she is."  
"Is what?"  
"Draco, honey, _vache_ in French means 'cow'."  
"Oh."  
"Honestly, one would think you Hogwarts grads never went to France!"  
"I haven't."  
"You're kidding!" Siriol sounded genuinely shocked.  
"No," Draco said.  
"Well then, during Reading Week I'm going to drag you all off to the Loire Valley where we can get toasted on quality wine at ridiculously cheap prices."  
"You're on," Harry said, eyes lighting up.  
"Okay. Anyway, I have to go write to this silly man. Ta ta, darlings."  
  
Siriol swept out of the room and squeezed down the narrow passageway, narrowly missing a hat stand from which were hanging a set of rather mouldy-looking green robes.  
"Well," Harry said to Draco, "since the weather is so atrocious, I think I'm going to go off for a little explore. Coming?"  
"Where're you going?"  
"Just around the house. I want to see where all the corridors and staircases lead."  
"Never mind. I've got to owl Severus anyway. I promised that we'd meet for drinks one weekend in Hogsmeade."  
"Oh aye," Harry said, raising an eyebrow as he slipped his mug and plate into a bowl of hot soapy water in the sink. "Severus. On first name terms? I'm half surprised you're not calling him 'Sevvy', Draco."  
"Shut _up_, Potter."  
  
Harry walked out of the kitchen and continued along the passageway, away from the front door. At the end was a staircase which ascended in the opposite direction to the passageway, and Harry, looking at the pictures hanging along it, started to climb the stairs. He walked past Priscilla the Perfectly-Proportioned, Fandelle the Flatulent and Gunther the Grumpy, who looked particularly bad-tempered (possibly due to the ghastly picture frame he was in) and scowled at Harry as he passed.  
  
At the top of the stairs, Harry continued along the corridor, taking a left and then a right. He reckoned that he should be fairly near the grand marble staircase, and congratulated himself as he turned a corner and emerged into the gleaming marble and gilt high-ceilinged room which housed the staircase. He turned right at the top, ignoring a sign directing him to the Penthouse, and followed a curving columned corridor, which emerged into a wide classical hallway with white marble statues spaced along both sides. He squeezed past Venus de Milo and David, as well as a rather gory-looking one of Ferdinand of Malfi and Isabella di Charalla entwined in a death masque.   
  
A pair of glass doors with tarnished brass handles led into a covered atrium, where Harry could hear the rain falling on the glassed-over roof as he walked among the orchids, palmettoes, bougainvilleas and hydrangeas blooming in the warm, humid air of the atrium. A tiered terracotta fountain in the centre lent a quiet splishing noise, which was unfortunately overshadowed by the rain beating down on the roof. The room smelled absolutely divine, with the scent of the lilies mingling with the bougainvilleas, and beautiful butterflies flitted about from one flower to the next.  
  
Harry crunched down a small gravel path leading to the other end of the arboretum and pushed open another glass door, finding himself in an altogether different corridor, this time looking very much like a Habsburg palace. The golden chandeliers, when added to the already overly-gilded mirrors, chairs, tables and wall-mounted candelabra lining the corridor, pushed "overly ornate" into "downright daft". Harry, shielding his eyes from the reflections of the gold, didn't see the house-elf that he tripped over, landing in a heap on the floor.  
  
"Oh, Tiddy is very sorry, sir," the muffled voice came from underneath Harry's left arm.  
"I'm so sorry," Harry said, hurriedly scrambling back from the elf. "I didn't see you down there."  
"Tiddy doesn't mind, sir, Tiddy was just polishing the candlesticks," the small elf explained.  
"Well, Tiddy, I'm very sorry to have knocked you over," Harry said.  
"Really, sir, Tiddy is all right. Is--is you Harry Potter, sir?" Tiddy asked hesitantly.  
"Yes, Tiddy, I is. Er, am."  
"Tiddy is heard lots about Harry Potter. You is a friend to house-elves, Harry Potter, you and Hermione Granger is."  
"Been talking to Dobby, Tiddy?"  
"Yes, Harry Potter, Tiddy has. Dobby is a good friend of Tiddy's."  
"How is he? I haven't seen him since I left Hogwarts."  
"Dobby is well, Harry Potter. He and Winky is having a children, a little children named Linny."  
"That's wonderful news! Please send him my congratulations when you talk to him next."  
"Tiddy will, Harry Potter."  
Smiling at Tiddy, Harry extended his hand. "Pleased to have met you, Tiddy. I'm sure we'll bump into each other again, but I'll try not to flatten you next time."  
"Tiddy is honoured to have been flattened by the great Harry Potter, sir," Tiddy said, shaking Harry's hand and bowing deeply until Harry turned the corner. Harry heard him humming away as he polished the candlesticks until, curious, he came upon a door marked "Hall of Mirrors". Opening it, Harry peered inside.  
  
The square hall which Harry entered was literally filled with mirrors. The entrance was raised a good three feet above the top of the mirrors, which were arranged like a maze, with a door on each side of the hall. He descended the short flight of stairs and started to follow the maze around, deciding that he would take every right turn until he arrived at a door. After walking into at least three mirrors, he withdrew his wand and held it out in front of him so that he would stop bashing his nose when a mirror tricked him into thinking it wasn't there. Eventually, he climbed one of the flights of stairs and opened the door. The sound of Tiddy's humming echoed down the corridor, making Harry frown. He was sure that he hadn't come back to the original door. Descending into the maze again, he continued his policy of taking every right until he climbed another flight of stairs. Sure enough, when he opened the door he could hear Tiddy humming. Harry snorted irritably and delved into his pockets for something to mark the stairs so he would know if he returned to them. He extracted a green paperclip and placed it on the third step from the bottom.  
  
Setting off again, he turned right, right and right again until he emerged at another flight of stairs -- without the paperclip on the third one. Triumphantly, he opened the door...to the sound of Tiddy humming. He looked down the corridor and established that yes, it was indeed the corridor from which he had entered the Hall, snorted again and, dropping a Knut on the third step from the bottom, strode around the maze again. Reaching another flight (without paperclip or Knut), he flung open the door. The door to the same corridor. The same corridor, with the same humming echoing down it. In frustration, Harry took out his wand and cast a Marking Charm on the banister of the flight of stairs, suspecting that someone or something was removing his markers. He Enchanted it so that if any wand but his attempted to remove it, it would make a loud screeching noise. Holding his head high, he veritably raced around the room, emerging at a flight of steps which had neither a paperclip, Knut or Charm on them. He opened the door to the corridor...and could almost have screamed as he heard Tiddy's humming resounding down it. He cast a different Marking Charm on this staircase and once again headed down into the maze. He emerged at the staircase marked with the Knut, opened the door and, looking down the corridor, heard Tiddy's humming.   
  
Setting his jaw, Harry frowned and resignedly closed the door to the Hall of Mirrors, walking away from the sound of Tiddy's humming. He resolved to ask Siriol what sort of Enchantment had been placed on the room to make it do that.  
  
* * *  
  
Harry returned to the drawing room to find Hermione and Narcissa back from shopping, warming themselves in front of the fire.  
"H-h-hello, Harry," Hermione said, patting her hair with a towel. "It's absolutely _d-d-dreadful_ outs-s-side. The wind just drives the rain up under umbrellas, hats, scarves, coats..." She shivered, and Harry went over and felt her cheeks. "You're _freezing_!" he yelped as he touched them. "Hermione, you must go have a steaming hot bath right now." Turning to Narcissa, he noticed her blue lips and nose. "You too, Narcissa."  
  
"W-w-what a g-g-good id-dea, H-h-harry," Hermione said through chattering teeth. He picked up one of the towels and wrapped it around her soaking cold hair and draped another around her shoulders. Handing a towel to Narcissa, who smiled gratefully, he steered Hermione firmly down the corridor, through the heavy oak doors and downstairs. He pushed open the door to the bathroom she shared with Xanthe and started to run the bath as hot as the water would go. With his wand he filled the room with hot steam and sprayed some essence of lavender from a vapouriser on a shelf. Hermione, still shivering, shed the towels, her soaked jeans and shirt and stepped into the bath. Harry helped to stabilise her as she sat down into the hot water, grabbed a sponge and began to squeeze the hot water over her hair, shoulders and neck.   
"Ahhh..." Hermione breathed as she began to warm up after several minutes. Harry, feeling rather warm by this time, had stripped down to his boxers and draped his clothes on the heated towel rail so they wouldn't get splashed. He rubbed Hermione's shoulders and neck, which still felt cold to the touch. "You're still chilly, aren't you?" he scolded. "What were you _thinking_, Hermione? _I'm_ the one who's supposed to go off and do stupid things like that and _you're_ supposed to tell _me_ off for it!"  
She giggled and murmured "Higher."  
Harry grabbed a purple flannel from the sink. "I assume, since this is a variant on Lilac rather than Daffodil, that this is yours?"  
"Mmm-hmm," Hermione said, leaning back into the hot water as Harry wet the flannel and draped it across her forehead and hair like a bandanna. The silence was broken only by the occasional splash or gurgle from the taps as she sat silently for a while, utterly relaxed. "I thought I'd never feel warm again," Hermione murmured quietly. "The cold got right into my bones." She paused. "Do I sound like an old granny?"  
"Er...yes," Harry said after an instantaneous moment of thought.  
"Wrong answer," she said, waggling a finger at him which he pushed back under the water.  
"Keep it _warm_," he scolded.  
"You're not supposed to answer yes to questions like that, Harry darling," she explained patiently.  
"Sorry," he said unconvincingly.   
  
She, realising that he held the moral upper hand, smiled lovingly at the worry that creased his brow. He did, she realised, look very cute wearing that expression. Something told her that telling him this would not exactly be a good move -- but she had, unfortunately, forgotten the mental link, which was carrying her every though to him.  
  
"Cute, eh?" he asked, pursing his lips.  
  
The door opened with a quiet _snick_ and Xanthe Montrose walked in, wearing only a dressing-gown. A yellow fluffy dressing-gown which Harry thought looked rather like that large yellow bird from that American children's programme. A yellow fluffy dressing-gown which was only belted at the waist and was showing rather more of Xanthe Montrose than she would have liked to show. In a rather comic moment, Xanthe looked up to see Harry and Hermione looking at her, the former rather appreciatively, and whipped the dressing-gown closed, cursing loudly, and put her hands on her hips.  
  
"This is a bathroom, not a bedroom, people!" she fumed.  
"Sorry, did I miss something?" Harry said, turning to Hermione. "Was there a day at Hogwarts where they explained about the differences between rooms? Because I must have been playing Quidditch that day. A bathroom, you say?" he asked, turning back to Xanthe. "I must remember that."  
  
"Shut it," Xanthe said bluntly. "Hermione, tell me when you're done in here." With that, she walked out and closed the door. "And remember to lock it next time!" she shouted through the door.  
  
Harry turned to Hermione. "Sorry, that probably wasn't very diplomatic, was it?" he asked.  
"Oh, I don't know, compared with what? Compared with, hypothetically, making earmuffs out of her guinea-pig, it wasn't bad."  
"Ah."  
"Are you taking sarcasm lessons from Draco?" Hermione asked.  
"Do I _look_ like I'm taking sarcasm lessons from Draco?" Harry replied. "Wait. Don't answer that."  
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Harry dear, I love you as you are. You don't have to pretend to be Draco."  
"I am _not_ pretending to be Draco!" Harry protested, reaching out his mental tendrils and splashing Hermione with sudsy bathwater.  
"I (splutter) know that, (cough) but it did (splutter) get a good (cough) rise out of you (splash)."  
"Ha bloody ha."  
  
* * *  
The next few days passed quickly, and Monday rolled around in its inexorable style. As Harry sat at the kitchen table eating breakfast, Draco stomped in with an emotional thundercloud looming above his head.  
"Morning, Draco. Morning, black cloud above Draco's head," Harry said over his coffee.  
"Shut up, Potter," Draco snarled. "You'll have a black bloody cloud over your head when you try to go through the Registration process at this bloody Institute. I spent half an hour trying to convince a witch less intelligent than Crabbe that I wasn't, in fact, Amelia Sorbonne, their fifty-year-old Sabbatical lecturer in Underwater Basketweaving. I then had to spell 'Malfoy' for her three times. Three times!"  
"It must have been a great trial."  
"Yes, thank you, Potter. If you'd had to be there at 7 a.m. you wouldn't be quite so sodding cheerful."  
"I know. But it's your own fault for having a name beginning with M. They time it alphabetically, you know."  
"Oh, that's fucking helpful. Draco Palfoy would sound so much better. Or perhaps Balfoy. Calfoy? Ealfoy? Halfoy, perhaps." Draco reached for the pot of coffee and a piece of toast.  
Harry nodded. "I was thinking Dalfoy myself, but there you go."  
"Sod off," Draco muttered, spooning sugar into his coffee.  
"Really, Draco, I feel for you. I really do."  
"When you say something like that, Harry, you really should try to sound convincing, rather than reminding me of a smarmy little supercilious piece of--"  
"Butter?"  
"That wasn't _precisely_ what I was thinking," Draco admitted as he took it from Harry, "but it'll do."  
  
* * *   
  
On reflection, Harry thought as he joined the queue marked "Queries" in the Lower College Hall of the Magid Institute, Draco had hit the nail squarely on the head. This was the fourth queue he had been directed to, since the people at the desk marked "First Year Magid Students" had no record of his application, acceptance or, in fact, existence. The fact that he was the most famous wizard in the world, however, had not prevented the mole-like wizard at the desk from asking him to spell "Potter". And, in what he was to realise was typical St Andrews bureaucracy, there were 30 people in the "Queries" queue, but none in any of the others. Looking at the clock on the wall, he realised that it was four o'clock.  
  
"Hey, Harry." A voice jerked him out of his thoughts and he turned to see Kensington de Plume behind him. Harry smiled and rolled his eyes. "Isn't this fun?"  
"Oh, yes. Very comparable with exciting recreational activities like, oh, eating sand," Kensington agreed, pausing for a moment before smiling and saying, "Well, at least I'm in the appropriate queue now."  
"At least, that's what you think," Harry grinned.  
"Oh, I am," Kensington said significantly, "Just ask Justin Finch-Fletchley." He pointed at the illuminated words hanging in midair which said 'Queries'. "Although they don't seem to be very good at spelling at this Institute."  
  
The queue dwindled until the bookish witch at the desk called "next!" Harry walked up and sat in the folding wooden chair opposite her. Opening a thick file, she picked up a wand, waved it at Harry and tapped the file once. A picture of a rather surprised-looking Harry appeared on the page, scratching his head.  
  
"Name." The witch sounded rather bored.  
"Harry Potter. P-O-T-T-E-R."  
"Date of birth."  
"July thirty-first, 1980."  
"Home address."  
"Malfoy Manor."  
"Just 'Malfoy Manor'?"  
"Yes. Owls find it with just that address."  
The witch gave him a sour look. "Intended degree."  
"Er...Magid Powers."  
"Next of kin."  
"Sirius Black."  
  
The witch continued to ask him one-line questions until the picture of Harry started to snore, at which point she closed the file and pulled a ten-inch-thick pile of papers and booklets from a pile next to the desk, placing it in front of Harry. "Your first class registration is at eleven tomorrow morning in room 28. Next!"  
  
Harry, feeling rather burdened with the books, smiled at Kensington, who asked him to wait for him. Harry walked over to a large piece of parchment entitled "Reminder -- Muggle Precautions", which exhorted all students to remember that St Andrews also contained a Muggle University, and that none of the fifty-odd entrances to the Institute should be used by more than five people per minute. The exact locations of said entrances was, apparently, located in Institute Booklet 213A, "Entrances To The Institute".  
  
Harry rifled through his armful of bumf until he found the turquoise booklet, the cover of which showed entrances superimposed on a map of St Andrews. It rather reminded him of the Marauders' Map, in that it showed the location of the reader, currently in "Lower College Hall". Inside, a comprehensive list of entrances to the Institute, ranging from Mrs Macgregor's Pie Shop, Haberdashery 'R' Us and the New World Wine section of Luvian's Bottleshop to the men's loos in the Silver Swan pub, Room 216 of the Muggle University's Buchanan Building and a small flat above the Balaka Bangladeshi Restaurant. Of course, the booklet went on to say, several buildings belonging to the Magid Powers and Astronomology departments on South Street were accessible from the street.  
  
"Sorry," a voice at his elbow said, and Harry turned to find the voice attached to a tall redhaired witch with her hair tied back into a ponytail behind her head. She was wearing jeans, a thick, striped shirt, and a jumper that looked homemade enough to give even Molly Weasley second thoughts. "I'm completely lost. Is that a map?"  
  
"Yep," Harry said. "Where are you trying to get to?"  
"I have to register for Magid Powers in Room 34, apparently. Something to do with them losing part of my course choices." Her accent sounded as if it came from Devon or Cornwall.  
"Oh, I'm doing MP as well," Harry said, sticking out his hand. "Harry Potter."  
"Minty Hemberley," she said. "I guess you're _the_ Harry Potter, eh?"  
"Unless someone else has started calling himself _the_ Harry Potter," Harry replied. "Interesting name you have, too."  
Minty grinned widely. "It's Araminta really. My parents had just a bit too much of the 60s than was good for them."  
"Ah," said Harry, smiling. "Did you go to Hogwarts?"  
"No, Durmstrang. Long, complicated family story behind it."  
  
"Okay. I know what that's like." Harry looked for Room 34, and found it between Room 87 and Room 101. "I reckon you turn left here, and then keep going down that corridor until you hit a cross corridor, and then it's first on the left."  
"Okay, left then left. Cheers, Harry."  
"No probs, Minty. See you in MP, then."  
"Yep."  
  
As she walked away, Kensington finally finished with the "bloody bureaucrats" and invited Harry to join him for a coffee in a cafe he'd found near the ruined Cathedral. They chatted as they walked, Kensington pointing out places of interest -- pubs, mostly -- on their way. He stopped at a small, pokey-looking cafe named "Tea and Scrumpets" and gestured for Harry to go in first. The interior couldn't have looked different from the exterior if it had tried. The first word that came to Harry's mind was "chic". A stainless-steel bar with sleek, shiny stools was illuminated by contemporary halogen spotlights hanging on thin wires from the ceiling. On the opposite side of the room, a group of fashionable studenty-types were gathered around a table, sipping cocktails from designer glasses. A very camp bartender stood behind the superbly-stocked bar. "Kensington, right?"  
  
"Indeed," Kensington said, shaking hands. "Long vodka for me. Harry?"  
"G and T, please," Harry said, looking at the many bottles of gin behind the bar. "Gordons gin."  
"Friend of yours, Kensington?" the barman asked as he swilled the bitters around in the bottom of the glass for Kensington's long vodka.  
"We live together," Kensington said with a sideways grin at Harry.  
"Correction. We live in the same house," Harry said. "Separate rooms."  
He pushed his hair back from his forehead, revealing his scar. "Besides, remember what happened to Hermione in fourth year when people thought she and I were going out. Just think of all those witches sending you hate mail, Kensington."  
The barman looked up, not having recognised Harry. "Oh, you're--"  
"Yes. But shh, don't tell everyone. I'm trying to keep a low profile."  
"My lips are sealed. I'm Jim, by the way."  
"Harry, but you knew that already."  
  
Harry and Kensington retreated to a small table near the crackling modern fireplace as "Do You Believe in Magic" started playing from the speakers above them. They chatted and joked for a while, and Harry really began to warm to the tall, outgoing wizard.  
"Oh, and did you hear the one about Severus Snape in heaven?" Kensington asked.  
"No, shoot."  
"Okay, so old ratface is at the Pearly Gates, and eventually St Peter comes out and says that Snape has to have done three good deeds in the last year to get into heaven. So, Snapey says "Well, I gave a Galleon to a homeless man the other day." St Pete asks for another good deed, and so he says "I donated two Galleons to Save the Wombats last month."  
"And number three?" asks St Peter.  
"Well, Snape has to rack his brains, but eventually remembers that he gave another two Galleons to Hogsfam in February. St Peter goes back into the pearly gates and has a chat with God, and eventually leans out of a window, throws a bag of coins to Snape and yells, "There's your five bloody galleons! Sod off!"  
  
Harry shook with laughter. "I can _so_ see that!"  
Kensington grinned. "So what's it _like_, y'know, being The Boy Who Lived?"  
Harry shrugged. "Depends on what mood I'm in, who I'm with...when I'm around Ron and Hermione, it's just like being a normal person -- they see past the scar to the real me. But when it's the whole _Witch Weekly, Daily Prophet, Hi!_ Magazine business, it gets really boring really fast. That probably sounds awfully stuck-up, but it's true."  
Kensington shrugged. "Not particularly. You going home for dinner?"  
"Yep," Harry said, finishing off his gin and tonic.  
  
They talked as they strolled back to the Castle, discussing Hogwarts, St Andrews, impressions of the Institute, and so on. They arrived with plenty of time to spare and chatted to Siriol for a while before Hermione, Ron and Draco emerged for dinner.  
  
"Sirius and Narcissa are eating out tonight," Hermione explained, "and Xanthe's out with a friend."  
The dinner, as usual for the Castle, was superb -- roast pork with apple and sage stuffing, with crispy roast potatoes and lashings of crackling._  
_"Oh, Draco, you were right about the delightful Registration process," Harry said in the middle of a mouthful. "About as much fun and as well-organised as a party thrown by Binnsy."  
"I told you so."  
"Yes, thank you Draco."  
  
"Harry, are you in Magid Powers tomorrow at eleven?" Ron asked.  
"If that's in room 28, yes," Harry said.  
"Goodo, me too."  
"I never knew you were a Magid, Weasley," Draco said. "What's the next surprise? You three really _are_ in a menage a trois?"  
"We're not, and I'm not a Magid. I'm doing Magid Studies, some of which parallels Magid Powers. The theory, anyway," Ron said.  
"More delusions of adequacy, Weasley? So, you get to hang on to Potter for another three years. How...nice for him. And you."  
"Be nice, ferret boy," Siriol said from the other side of the table. "I've heard Al Moody needs a vacation..."  
Draco tried hard not to look worried, but failed miserably. "Oh goody."  
"I thought you'd be pleased," the American witch smiled.  
"You have no idea of the depth of my rapture," Draco said flatly.  
"Oh, I dunno. I could make a fair guess..."  
"I don't think that'll be necessary."  
  
* * *  
  
Muchos kudos to betareading Angels Cassie, Ebony and Penny. (Hello Angels...) Adoration to Calliope, my Muse. And you all know where the "smarmy, supercilious piece of butter" came from...and what it's going to be spread on. Toast, anyone?


	7. Draco Vivens

sot6ffn

**Harry Potter and the Song of Time  
By Crazy Ivan  
  
Fanfiction.net version -- please note that, due to FFN chaptering's inability to provide a prologue, this is listed as Chapter 7 but is actually chapter 6.**  
  
Author's Note: Our story began in Harry & Co.'s final year at Hogwarts, and moves quickly on to the first year of post-Hogwarts life. Our heroes start at the Institute in St Andrews, Britain's finest place of higher wizarding education, both Magid and non-Magid. Friends old and new pop up in the strangest of places, and we delve into the very meaning of Time itself!  
  
Parts of the story are loosely inspired by, extrapolated from and refer to _Draco Dormiens_ by the superlative Cassandra Claire, who has kindly given her consent to the use of Magids (a kind of super-powerful wizard) and 'her' Draco and his new outlook on life. It was written before the completion of _Draco Sinister_, so not all ideas in that story may be taken on board -- particularly the Heir theme. Neither it is a sequel to _DD_ or _DS. _We also go against JKR's own canon statements that there is no wizarding education past Hogwarts. Why? Because that's what fanfic is for, dammit! (NB: Since FFN decided to remove Cassie, her wonderful fanfiction can be found at Schnoogle.com, part of the FictionAlley.org quality novel-length fanfiction community. Crazy Ivan's there too!)  
  
Obligatory Disclaimer: I make no claims to be JKR -- or, for that matter, Cassandra Claire. Mainly because I'd look silly in a dress (or leather, **or a kilt, Sinead...**), but also because I respect and acknowledge their copyrighted material, characters and settings.  
  
All new material, however, is mine. All mine. And, to quote British Magical Rail, if you steal it, use it in any moneygrubbing gobliny sort of way, or do anything else with it that would upset my grandmother, "We Will Send Large Hairy Thugs Round To Your House To Pull Off Your Toenails".  
  
For reasons of language, this story is rated "R". Hey, eighteen-year-olds swear, drink, and have, er, relations sometimes.  
  
  
  
  
**Chapter Six: Draco Vivens  
**  
  
  
Harry, Draco and Ron walked through the Reading Room of the Muggle University's St Salvator's Quadrangle, books and quills in hand, and, tapping on the brick indicated by the Institute booklet, found themselves in a long curving corridor with canary yellow on the walls, floor and ceiling.   
  
"Following the yellow sodding brick road," Harry mumbled.  
"What?" Ron asked.  
"Never mind," Harry said.  
  
"Institute, This Way" was painted above a pointing finger. They followed the finger around the corridor for what seemed like ten minutes until they emerged into another corridor, painted an eye-jarring puce. A large door marked "Room 28" faced them, and Draco pushed it open.  
  
Inside, steps led down through several sloped rows of seats behind desks. At the front was a large whiteboard bordered in green. Draco assumed an Engorgement spell automatically added places to the room when people arrived. He, Harry and Ron took seats near the whiteboard at one end of the room and looked around them. Wizards and witches of every nation were represented and were talking in more languages than Draco had ever heard. He smiled at a short witch next to him wearing what he assumed was African traditional dress. He had to admit, it was gorgeous. The block patterns emphasised the range of colors in it -- every color of the rainbow and others he didn't know could be dyed into clothes.  
  
"Hello," he said with a smile. "I'm Draco Malfoy."  
"Martha Mkenyo," she said in a deep, lilting contralto, holding out her hand. "Pleased to meet you, Draco. Are you a Magid?"  
Draco nodded. "Yes. You?"  
"Yeah. I was getting some training back home in Kenya, but my teacher was less powerful than I am, so she thought it would be best if I went away to the Institute."  
"Where did you go to school?" Draco asked, pleasantly surprised at how well he was doing at smalltalk.  
"Lake Naivasha in Kenya," Martha said. "It was a lot of fun. How 'bout you?"  
"Hogwarts. It was fun too. Apart from the whole Voldemort Thing. That wasn't fun."  
"Yeah, we had to deal with one of those sort ourselves," Martha empathised. "No fun."  
  
Their discourse was interrupted by the arrival of a tall, grey-haired wizard at the front of the classroom. "I assume this is _Introductory Magid Powers_ and _Magid Studies_?" he asked. Everyone nodded. "Excellent. It was either that or Fourth Year _Knitting and its Influences on the Modern World_. I am Dr Adamson, Course Coordinator for this module. I'll be passing around a piece of parchment, to which you should all sign your names and term addresses. Oh, and next of kin. That's particularly important. This being the Institute, we won't learn those from the bureaucracy until Week 10, and we might need to contact your relatives before then. Now," he began, tapping the top piece of a pile of paper with his wand and waving it smartly at the whiteboard, which zapped the contents of the piece of paper up on the wall, "this is Magid Theory. If your degree plans do not involve Magid Theory, please leave the airplane by the front door." Chuckles rolled around the room among those of Muggle upbringing, while several less-widely travelled wizards and witches looked a trifle puzzled.  
  
"What is a Magid? Well, as most ordinary wizards see it, a Magid is just a powerful wizard with a very strong Will. That's not too far from the truth, but there are certain significant ways in which Magids do differ from ordinary wizards."  
  
He tapped the next piece of paper, and the image on the board changed to "Differences between Magids and Ordinary Wizards"  
  
"Magid power is drawn from elemental forces, and is not focused using wands. In fact, the power itself is not visible in any spectra of visible light unless you're a vampire. That's very important to realise -- there won't be any sparks, flashy lights or bubbles to show your power. You might see things happening as a _result_ of the power, such as seas moving, rain falling, people flying through the air et cetera, but the actual power itself is invisible."  
  
He tapped the stack again and "Magid Elemental Forces" appeared on the board.   
  
"There are five Magid Elemental Forces. You may hear these referred to as 'MEF's or 'Forces' in literature. They are Sky, Sea, Earth, Fire and Life, and Sky roughly equates to air and non-precipitation weather; Sea to water and precipitation weather; Earth to soil, earthquakes, rocks and that sort of thing -- oh, and lava with Fire; Fire is basically fire, as well as lava with Earth; and Earth is all living things. You may have realised that they are most often combined -- Sky and Sea to make a hurricane, Earth and Fire to make a volcano, Sea, Earth and Life to make a plant grow, Sky and Fire to make a firestorm, and so on and so forth. You get the drift."  
  
The image on the board shifted again. "Usual MEF combinations"  
  
"So, you say, can I as a young, bright-tailed and bushy-eyed first-year Magid use all of them? Well, I've been here for a century and _I_ can't use all of them. It's simply a matter of innate talent. You can't become proficient at a mef simply by reading about it, although there are instances where a Magid has, through years of research into a mef, been able to gain some ability in it, although nothing like as strongly as an innate talent. The usual broad -- and I mean _very _broad -- classifications are Sea and Sky as feminine mefs, Earth and Fire as masculine mefs, and Life as either. However, some notable exceptions occur -- Albus Dumbledore, for instance, has innate talents in all but Sky."  
  
The next page was entitled "Schedule for Semester 1".  
  
"Unfortunately for you, but fortunately for everyone who might be affected by your powers, you will not be instructed in the actual use of your powers until after Reading Week -- that's week 7 for those of you who haven't read the piles of literature you've been given. This is for the very good reason that we don't particularly want you blasting apart bits of St Andrews in your excitement. In fact, before you leave this room, the teaching team will, I'm afraid, have to put a bottleneck on your capabilities until then. This will, as I know from a hundred years of prior experience, prevent you from any embarrassing incidents. Ah, I see from the red faces around the room that some of you have already experienced a coital explosion or two. I do hope nobody you liked was injured."  
  
Adamson looked around the room. "Right, since we do have to bottleneck you, that's as much of a lecture as you get today. However, please read the Introduction and Chapter 1 of _Magids, Theory and Practice_ before tomorrow's lecture. Dr Hubble will be basing her lecture significantly around that. Any questions? No, all right. Would you please exit from the closest door to you. The teaching staff will be waiting outside to perform the bottleneck on each of you."  
  
Nobody moved. "That's it. Off you go," Adamson said as a witch and two wizards walked in almost simultaneously. "Oh, incidentally," he remarked, pointing at the woman, who had long black hair tied at the nape falling down her back, "this is Dr Mildred Hubble, Lecturer in the Sky Force." He indicated the other men. "Professors Horatio Norton, Sea, and Ignatius Flamel, Fire. Professor Hiroko Aikatsu, Life Force, is in the middle of an important experiment concerning an elephant at the moment and so cannot be here. Right, first victim!"  
  
People began to stand and shuffle towards the doors. Draco heard a blonde girl remarking in an American accent, "Like, I can't see why they have to put these stupid things on us, y'know? Like we're gonna go do stuff with our powers. It's so dumb!"  
  
Draco rolled his eyes at Harry, who was walking towards another girl as if he knew her. "Minty?" he heard Harry ask. Craning his ears forward, he listened in to the conversation.  
"Yes? Oh, wotcha Harry."  
_Wotcha? Does anyone use words like that any more?_ Draco thought, eyebrows raised.  
Harry introduced the girl to Ron, and Draco turned aside to Martha Mkenyo, who was waiting in line next to him. "Where are you living in St Andrews?" he asked in a small-talky sort of way as they shuffled closer to the front of the room and Dr Hubble's door.  
"The Kenyan Ministry of Magic owns a large house out on Largo Road," Martha explained. "All Kenyan students live there for at least their first year, and they can either stay there in subsequent years or find their own private accommodation."  
"Er...not to sound foolish, but where's Largo Road?"  
"Ages away, about twenty minutes' walk from here. There's a bus...do you know where the big Safeway supermarket is on the outskirts of town?"  
"General idea of the area, yes."  
"Right, head that way for twenty minutes on foot. The distance is a bit annoying, but it's nice and quiet and the neighbours don't ask what you're doing in the garden, that sorta thing." Martha searched her bag for a scrap of paper and scribbled down her address. "There you go, 44 Largo Road. Do drop by for tea or something. I'm sure the warden won't mind."  
"Certainly, if I can find it," Draco said with a smile.  
Martha beamed at him. "Great. Oh, excuse me, Draco, I spot one of my housemates. I must go tell him to avoid lunch. Cook was making a rather pungent stew as I was leaving."  
  
Martha started to clamber over the line of chairs to the other line where a tall black wizard was waving to her. Draco turned back to Harry, who had just tapped him on the shoulder.  
  
"Draco, this is Minty Hemberley. We ran into each other while I was registering and she was re-registering," Harry said with that open, friendly grin of his. "Minty, this is Draco Malfoy. We go way back at Hogwarts."  
  
"Yes, if I remember correctly, I tried to have you expelled for at least four years," Draco said, smiling. "Minty...that's an interesting name."  
He sized the girl up. She looked very down-to-earth, almost farmer-like in her clothing, a pair of worn jeans and a rustic-looking cream woollen jumper over a somewhat garish lumberjack shirt. Her mass of curly red hair fell back in a rather ineffectual ponytail which bushed out beneath the tieback elastic. _Weasley must think he's spotted a millionaire_, Draco thought, and then sighed. _A bit uncharitable, no?_ he asked himself.  
  
"It's short for Araminta," Minty explained. "The 1960s happened to my parents."  
Draco raised his head knowingly. "I see. Where are you from? I don't remember seeing you at Hogwarts..."  
"That's hardly surprising. I _am_ 26 years old, after all. I probably graduated before you arrived."  
"You don't _look_ 26," Draco said reflexively.  
"Ah, isn't he nice," she said, punching him lightly on the shoulder. "My Magid power matured later than normal -- I was 25 before the explodey-things started."  
"Ah, those explodey-things..." Harry mused quietly.  
  
Their chat was interrupted as Draco was called forwards to receive the bottleneck of his powers. Dr Hubble, the only teaching witch in the room, motioned him forwards in a businesslike manner.  
"Come along now," she said, placing her fingers around his forehead and temples and closing her eyes. Draco felt a slight pressure _inside_ his head, which snapped away suddenly as he mentally prodded at it. He looked up at the tall witch, who was staring wide-eyed at him.  
"What's your name?" she asked very quietly.  
"Draco Malfoy," Draco replied bemusedly.  
"Well, Mr Malfoy, you're a very strong one. Let's try that bottleneck again, only please relax and don't attempt to fight the bottleneck."  
Draco apologised, looking somewhat sheepish.  
"It's all right, I was just a little surprised. Anyway..." she placed her fingers on his head again and Draco felt the pressure going downwards through his head into his upper neck, and then the pressure was gone. "That's it," Dr Hubble said. "Off you go now."  
  
Rubbing the back of his neck, which was a little sore, Draco walked out the door into an ultramarine blue corridor and leaned against the wall to wait for the others. Ron walked out first, followed shortly by Minty, who was rubbing the back of her neck.  
"I s'pose it's got something to do with the location of your Magid Powers," Ron surmised, since as a non-Magid he'd not had the bottleneck done.  
"Must do," Minty said absorbedly. Ron leaned against the wall next to Draco.  
"So, Draco, who's the bird?"  
"_Bird_, Weasley? Which _bird_ would that be?"  
"The one sitting next to you in the lecture, who you were talking to afterwards. You know, the one in the fancy dress."  
"If you must know, that was an African tribal kikoye and dress from Kenya. The _bird_'s name is Martha Mkenyo, and she's from Kenya."  
"First name terms, eh, Draco? Getting a little bit jiggy with her?"  
"First of all, Weasley, I am not 'getting jiggy' with anybody at the moment. Secondly, I can't recall the time you had a girlfriend since we were fifteen. And thirdly, were I to be 'getting jiggy' with anybody, you'd be the last to know." Draco paused. "Well, perhaps Hagrid would be the last to know. Or maybe Argus Filch. Anyway," he continued, "as the Americans say, 'butt out'."  
"Bloody hell," Minty observed, "'ee can tell that you went to school together."  
  
The moment that was reminding them all of being back in school ended as Harry walked out stooped over, grasping the back of his neck in pain.  
  
"Harry?" Ron sounded very worried.  
"S'okay," Harry muttered, but didn't object when Ron took his bag of parchment and quills from him.  
"Seriously, what's wrong?" he asked as Minty and Draco looked on concernedly.  
"Bottleneck. Hurts. Like I've slept on it for a month without turning over."  
"Here," Minty said, moving behind Harry and starting to knead his neck and shoulders with her strong hands. "Move your head forwards. Now back. Left. Right. Forwards again."  
"Remember who you have waiting for you back home, Potter," Draco warned bitingly.  
"Draco, is it my imagination, or are you attempting to get someone to strangle you. Because if you are, I'd be only happy to help," Minty said obligingly. "Since Harry's neck's a little stiff, you understand."  
"That's not the only--" Draco began.  
"_Shut_ it, Draco," Harry growled.  
  
  
  
  


* * *  


  
  
  
  
The next few weeks passed in a blur of quills, parchment and musty old books on Short Loan from the Institute's well-stocked but bizarrely-catalogued library, where Hermione was working in order to get the extra credits which allowed her to take first _and_ second year Arithmancy in one year.  
  
"I don't know how you manage it," Harry was saying to her as Draco walked into the kitchen one evening to find Harry obscured behind _Momentous Magids_ and a bowl of pasta and Hermione leafing through rolls and rolls of parchment, obviously looking for some piece of information. He served himself from the bowl in the centre of the table and sat down next to Harry, pulling out a list of names and dates to learn for their tutorial the next day.  
"Manage what?" Hermione said.  
"Well, two classes in the morning and then Librarian Studies three afternoons a week, for one," Harry said between a mouthful of pasta.  
"Honestly, Harry, it's hardly as much work as NEWTs were," she said as she scrolled through the parchment. "I don't even have to get up before ten here."  
"It's bizarre, isn't it?" Draco broke in. "You go through school waking up between seven and eight for seven years without much of a complaint, and now you get to university and find that having a ten o'clock lecture is early."  
"Mmm," Hermione said. "Of course, going to bed at three a.m. isn't exactly conducive to getting up at seven or eight..." She gave Harry a significant sort of look, making him blush scarlet. Draco raised an inquisitive eye, but decided on impulse to refrain from wondering aloud what going to bed at three a.m. _was_ conducive to.  
"Er, yes. Anyway, Harry, looking forward to the Classification tomorrow?" Draco poured himself a glass of Montepulciano D'Abruzzo from the bottle on the table and sipped at it.  
"Yes, I am," Harry said as he spread parmesan on his pasta. "I was reading up on the Institute's texts about the process. It'll apparently be the first time that we get to visit the Ivory Tower -- the photographs I've seen of it are fantastic."  
"Oh, there's a great description and some wonderful pictures of it in _A Millennium At The Institute_," Hermione put in. "All that granite intertwined with the quartz and obsidian...I'd love to see it."  
"Where is it, geographically, I mean?" Draco asked.  
"No clue, and none of the books say either," Hermione said. "It's supposed to be something of a secret."  
"Ah..." Harry said. "That sounds just up our street."  
"Oh, don't bother, Harry," Hermione said. "It's probably like Malfoy Mansion, it moves around. Draco, tell me more about this Classification thing. It sounded like it had a really big capital letter, so it must be important."  
"Well, it is," Draco said. "It's essentially where we Magids get sorted into ability- and force-based groups. It's done on a percentile basis of all powers of all known Magids. To be accepted into the Institute, you must show at least a 60th percentile ability in at least one Magid Elemental Force. Harry and I, apparently, score above in all five of them."  
  
Hermione turned to Harry accusingly. "And you were worried about me taking on too much!"  
"Relax, Hermione," Harry said. "The plan is that we take one extra year to complete our sub-Honours. That will theoretically mean two years of three Forces and one year of two Forces."  
"Yes," Draco said, "and since we're the only two people in this position for ten years, it's not like they have a whole load of people doing the same thing."  
"So what does this Classification involve?" Hermione asked.  
"It's apparently this great ceremony," Harry said, gesturing with his hands. "The five most powerful Magids in each Force all sit at the top of the Ivory Tower in a circle and attempt to draw as much power as possible through each Candidate. 60-70 percent is a Class 4, 70-80 is Class 3, 80-90 is Class 2, and 90+ is Class 1. The top five percent of each Class is A and the bottom five are B, so if I were in the seventy-third Fire percentile, I'd be 3B."  
Hermione's eyes moved around the room, trying to work out all the maths involved. "I see. And is this procedure dangerous?"  
"Not that I know. Of course, they'd hardly let us know if it were, would they?" Harry asked as Hermione unconsciously moved closer to him.  
"That's terrifically comforting to someone who doesn't know if her boyfriend is going to come back more intelligent than a carrot," Hermione said reproachfully, prodding Harry in the arm.  
  
Draco scraped the bottom of his bowl with a piece of bread and stood up. "Right, off to get some learning done," he said, waving his piece of parchment at them. "Nkethe Mdeyo, 1233-1589, writer of _A Guide to Magid Power_..." He placed the bowl on the countertop next to the sink and headed upstairs. Entering his room, he kicked off his shoes into the corner and flopped down on his bed, absentmindedly scratching the resident cat, Xander, under the chin.   
  
Draco reached back and arranged his pillows to prop him up in a semi-sitting position while he continued to memorise the names and dates that served as triggers for his memory. "Henry Armathwaite, 1788-1995. Revolutionised the Fire MEF with his new approach in the early 1800s."  
  
  
  
  


* * *  


  
  
  
  
Draco awoke the next day to the light streaming through the curtains. He jumped out of bed with a glance at his clock which said "You really ought to shower now". Grabbing his towel from the radiator, he padded down the corridor and into the bathroom, showered quickly while singing to himself and, towel wrapped around his waist, grabbed his boxers and walked back out into the corridor. An appreciative-looking Kensington gave a friendly wolf-whistle from where he was leaning, pajama-bottoms-clad, against the opposite wall. "Morning," he said, eyeing Draco's chest.  
"Morning," Draco said. "And don't be so obvious about lusting after my body."  
"Lusting? Moi?" Kensington asked.  
"Oui, toi," Draco said in a French accent that a six-year-old would have winced at.  
  
Back in his room, he picked out his favorite shirt, the black, round-collared one with the classically understated dragon on the pocket, and the full-length, neck-clasping robe with high collar. The clock now said "You should be having breakfast by now", so he combed his hair, rubbed some hair wax into it and headed out into the corridor. Harry was descending from his own Tower and tossed a "good morning" at Draco as they met in the entrance hallway.  
  
Scrambled eggs awaited them in the kitchen, but Siriol, their usual breakfast companion, was nowhere to be found. Xanthe Montrose walked in, dressed in a swishy skirt and bright yellow button-down shirt, as they were about halfway through their plates and forked some eggs into the middle of a bagel.  
"Guys, we should be at the Transflector for the Ivory Tower in ten minutes, she said, leaning on the countertop and munching on the bagel.  
  
Draco bolted down the rest of his breakfast and followed Harry and Xanthe out onto the road, squinting in the low morning sun. Harry called out to Minty Hemberley as she came out onto North Street from her flat, and hurried forward to meet her. Draco caught up with Xanthe and they walked together in silence as they approached the green door on Murray Park that was the entrance to the Institute's Transflector room.  
  
Blinking to adjust his eyes to the comparative darkness, Draco smiled politely at the wizard sitting on a tall stool next to a large dial labelled with dozens of destinations such as _The Ivory Tower_, _The Farm_, _Espeche Alley Transflector Centre_, _Vaternish_, _Duntulm_ and so on. On the floor were marked six purple circles, each large enough for a person to stand inside.  
"More for the Ivory Tower?" the wizard asked them, pointing his wand expectantly at the _Ivory Tower_ mark.  
"Yes indeed," Harry said. "All four of us."  
  
The wizard turned the dial to _The Ivory Tower_ position and tapped a large spherical stone protruding from the wall four times. Four of the purple circles lit up as if from beneath. "Step onto the lit circles, please," the wizard said. "Just relax. This is probably your first Transflect."  
  
With a dramatic flourish of his hand, he depressed the spherical stone into the wall. The four students saw a bright purple flash and disappeared.  
  
"I love my job," the wizard remarked happily to the empty room.  
  
  


* * *  
  


**Enjoyed it? Good! But wait...THERE'S MORE OF IT! Yes, that's right -- you've only read half of Chapter Six of the Song of Time! Point your browser over to Crazy Ivan's very own section of [Schnoogle.com][1], part of the [FictionAlley.org][2] community of high-quality, novel-length fanfiction, to read the rest of it -- and every subsequent part of the Song of Time.  
  
[Schnoogle.com][1] has been set up in order to showcase some of the finest works of Harry Potter-based fanfiction available on the internet. Here's a current (July 22nd) list of the wonderful authors whose work appears at [Schnoogle.com][1]:  


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And remember...a schnoogle a day keeps boredom away :)**

   [1]: http://www.Schnoogle.com
   [2]: http://www.FictionAlley.org



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